Sam Darnold and the No. 1 seed Seattle Seahawks punched their ticket to Super Bowl LX on Sunday night, taking down the No. 5 seed Los Angeles Rams with a 31-27 final score at Lumen Field.
Darnold put forth a stellar effort at the quarterback position, completing 25 of his 36 pass attempts for 346 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. And to make this stat line even more impressive, the 8th-year NFL veteran “barely practiced” in the week leading up to Sunday night’s conference championship game.
Darnold has been dealing with an oblique injury that emerged in the days leading up to the Seahawks’ divisional round matchup against the San Francisco 49ers.
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald heaped praise on Darnold during his postgame press conference.
“Three hundred and something yards, three touchdowns, no picks,” Macdonald said. “Every time they went and scored again, he came back. He had some big-time throws on third down, two-minute drive, four-minute drive. The guy barely practiced all week. Just really happy for him. he deserves it. He’s been a rock for us all year.”
“It should go down as one of the best performances in playoff history,” he added.
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Darnold said he was not concerned about his lack of practice repetitions leading up to the NFC Championship game.
“I’ve actually talked to my teammates about this,” Darnold said. “I think middle of the season — Week 9 or Week 10 — it might have been a bigger problem. But with all the reps that we’ve accumulated throughout the season and throughout training camp, OTAs, all that stuff — I wasn’t really concerned about timing or anything like that.”
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Darnold and the Seahawks will face off against Drake Maye and the AFC Championship-winning New England Patriots in a Super Bowl LX matchup on Feb. 8.
