Sam Darnold Builds on This League-Best Stat

2025 Fantasy Football Impact

Darnold hit WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a 61-yard score down the middle of the field in the second quarter. He then found TE AJ Barner deep for another 61-yard gain in the fourth.

Darnold's day also included:

• a 32-yard deep ball to JSN
• a 20-yard downfield throw to JSN
• and a short toss to Cooper Kupp that turned into a 29-yard pickup.

The QB's average depth of target entering the game sat just 0.1 yard deeper than his 2024 rate (9.4 vs. 9.3), according to Pro Football Focus. But a career-best 73% completion rate has his yards per attempt more than a yard longer than his previous high and more than 2 yards ahead of his career rate.

That's certainly not a development we expected when Darnold entered the season with Smith-Njigba and Kupp as his top two WRs.

But Seattle's coaches are proving why they decided to move on from Geno Smith and import the former Viking on a multi-year deal. And Darnold's strong efficiency lines up with the improvement he showed in Minnesota.

He's also working on a second straight career-high in TD rate: now 6.8% after Sunday's game.

Darnold gets a tough Week 7 matchup with the Texans, who hit their bye Sunday as the league's worst QB matchup by our adjusted fantasy points allowed.

But we might have to start consistently ranking Darnold higher after his Week 8 bye. He gets fine matchups on the other side of that:

• at Washington
• vs. Arizona
• at L.A. Rams
• at Tennessee