Sam Darnold says he\u2019s thankful for the chance to start his first Super Bowl this Sunday when the Seattle Seahawks face the New England Patriots at Levi\u2019s Stadium in Santa Clara. He admitted, though, that he\u2019s a bit bummed he\u2019ll miss Bad Bunny\u2019s halftime performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love his music,\u201d Darnold told reporters Monday at NFL Super Bowl LX media night. \u201cIt would\u2019ve been awesome to see him, but I\u2019ll be getting ready for the second half by then.\u201d<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t Darnold\u2019s first trip to the Super Bowl area \u2014 he was previously on the San Francisco 49ers\u2019 roster as Brock Purdy\u2019s backup and did not play \u2014 and the 28-year-old says his time around the league has helped prepare him to chase his first Vince Lombardi Trophy. \u201cI try to take every experience and learn from it,\u201d he said, reflecting on being drafted by the Jets and how things didn\u2019t pan out there the way he\u2019d hoped.<\/p>\n
New York picked Darnold third overall in 2018, but he was released in 2021 after 38 games and a 13-25 record. After stops with multiple teams over the following years, he says Seattle finally feels like home. Darnold said he wanted to make New York his long-term team, but when that didn\u2019t happen he gained valuable lessons in Carolina and San Francisco. His time in Minnesota, he added, gave him an opportunity to prove what he can do on the field, and people noticed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince I\u2019ve been in Seattle it\u2019s felt like home,\u201d he said, thanking John and Mike for believing in him and praising his teammates. \u201cAs a quarterback, it\u2019s a huge relief to just go out and do my job every play.\u201d Off the field, Darnold calls himself a foodie who enjoys sampling Seattle\u2019s restaurants, and he also likes to play golf.<\/p>\n
The Seahawks and Patriots kick off Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
Fan Take: Darnold\u2019s journey \u2014 from a high draft pick to journeyman and now a Super Bowl starter \u2014 is a reminder that quarterback careers can be nonlinear, which gives fans hope and adds drama to roster decisions around the league. If he leads Seattle to a title, it could reshape how teams evaluate and rehabilitate struggling QBs in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sam Darnold says he\u2019s thankful for the chance to start his first Super Bowl this Sunday when the Seattle Seahawks face the New England Patriots at Levi\u2019s Stadium in Santa Clara. He admitted, though, that he\u2019s a bit bummed he\u2019ll miss Bad Bunny\u2019s halftime performance. \u201cI love his music,\u201d Darnold told reporters Monday at NFL […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[859],"tags":[860],"class_list":{"0":"post-40943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}