SAN FRANCISCO — The text arrived in the early morning hours of March 7 last year, just days before the start of NFL free agency. A league personnel executive was hearing things about the Raiders’ quarterback plans.
“Be on the lookout for a Geno Smith trade to the Raiders,” the text began. “It would make some sense. I know they are not interested in Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones, or Justin Fields. Available options are getting small.”
And so began a chain of events that would redirect the course of three different franchises and seal the fates of one of the most respected coaches in the NFL and a young general manager hell-bent on trying to prove he made the right call on draft night.
While simultaneously setting the stage for the redemption of a young quarterback who had to carry the burden of the ineptness of two different franchises, which prematurely identified him as one of the league’s all-time busts, only to lead the one team that truly believed and did right by him, advancing to the Super Bowl 60.
We are, of course, talking about Darnold, whose path to vindication and triumph with the Seahawks was paved by so many different individual agendas and motivations that it’s nearly impossible to comprehend.
Essentially, it relied on three primary characters playing cards for their specific needs.
The Geno factor
Much like Darnold, with whom he shares a connection with as a fellow cast-off of the Jets, Smith found salvation in Seattle. After meandering around as an NFL backup after busting with the Jets, who used a second-round pick to select him out of West Virginia in 2013, and the Panthers, Smith thrived as a starter in Seattle after the Seahawks moved on from Russell Wilson and handed Smith the reins.
Smith’s surprising success with the Seahawks, for whom he provided three starting years that ranked among the top 10 to 13 quarterbacks in the league, helped create two different dynamics that eventually led Darnold to the Seahawks.
First, Smith won the trust of then-Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, who watched Smith grow from a presumed career backup into a quality starter. Secondly, it reimagined Smith’s self-worth in himself and his belief that he should be paid among the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
Those two worlds would collide when Carroll was eventually pushed out as the Seahawks coach in 2024, only to emerge as the new Raiders coach in 2025. And when Smith and the Seahawks’ year-long disagreement over his financial worth hit a permanent roadblock.
The Seahawks aspired to re-up Smith on a new contract extension, but he balked at their offer of $70 million guaranteed.
Almost at that very moment, Carroll, who took over the Raiders in January of 2025, and the club’s Tom Brady and John Spytek-led front office, came up short on their bid to convince Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford to accept their contract offer of more than $100 million.
Thus ending any hope of swaying the Rams into trading Stafford to Las Vegas.
Carroll and the Raiders weren’t keen on Darnold, the soon-to-be Vikings free agent, or any of the other quarterback options in free agency. So Carroll convinced Brady and Spytek to make a move on Smith, his former Seahawks quarterback, who was disgruntled with Seattle’s contract offer.
The Seahawks, who were suspicious of Smith’s viability as their long-term starter and unwilling to meet his financial demands, agreed to trade him to the Raiders for a third-round pick, creating the opening to go get Darnold.
The Darnold and Vikings factor
After busting with the Jets and Panthers, largely due to the ineptness of both franchises, Darnold spent a year rehabilitating himself under the stewardship of 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and quarterbacks coach Klint Kubiak.
The bond Kubiak and Darnold formed would play a huge role in leading him to Seattle. But not before Darnold parlayed the guidance and instruction he got in San Francisco into a one-year contract with the Vikings, who needed an insurance policy to cover whatever learning curve their 2024 first-round pick, Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy, might experience.
The Vikings traded up in the 2024 draft to select McCarthy, mostly at the behest of general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who needed a quarterback to super-charge the Vikings’ quest to be an NFL power.
The skin Adofo-Mensah had in McCarthy would shape Adofo-Mensah’s eventual decision-making, not only leading to Darnold’s landing in Seattle but also to Adofo-Mensah’s firing.
McCarthy was in line to be the Vikings’ 2024 starter before a knee injury in the preseason opener sidelined him for the rest of the year. His injury paved the way for Darnold, fresh off the quarterback master’s class he got from Shanahan and Kubiak, who just so happened to be operating out of the same playbook that Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell learned from, to be the Vikings starter.
Darnold ran with the opportunity, delivering a career-year in which he led the Vikings to a 14-3 record while throwing for 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions.
Under normal circumstances, those numbers and that record would have resulted in the Vikings happily rewarding Darnold with a long-term contract.
But don’t forget, Adofo-Mensah traded up for McCarthy in the 2024 draft.
That made the former Michigan star Adofo-Mensah’s guy. No matter how well Darnold played — and admittedly, Darnold did not play well in a Week 18 loss to the Lions that cost the Vikings the top seed in the playoffs and their loss to the Rams in the wild-card round — Adofo-Mensah had plenty of reasons to back McCarthy as the Vikings’ 2025 starter rather than sign Darnold to a new contract.
That meant Darnold needed to find a new home.
All roads lead to Seattle
The Vikings’ decision to roll with McCarthy rather than extend Darnold, coupled with Carroll’s decision to push for a trade for Smith, with whom he had developed a strong bond with in Seattle, created the very Seattle quarterback hole that Darnold would fill in the Pacific Northwest.
But one other factor played a pivotal role.
Kubiak, the 49ers quarterbacks coach with whom Darnold formed a deep connection, was out of a job when the Saints fired head coach Dennis Allen, for whom Kubiak served as the Saints’ offensive coordinator.
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald immediately hired Kubiak as his new offensive coordinator, originally to serve as Smith’s play-caller but, as it turns out, the primary magnet that pulled Darnold to the Emerald City.
Needing to find a new home, Darnold turned his attention to Seattle.
Kubiak, a staunch believer in his former Bay Area pupil, vouched for him.
“He’s unbelievable,” Darnold said of Kubiak, “Just the things that I learned when I was with Klint in ’23 just schematically. And then getting to learn from him as a coach and as a person. Just the grit. He wakes up at insane hours. He gets to the facility at 4-4:30 in the morning, and he’s there later than anyone. He’s a grinder. He loves football. And he’s very honest and he’s very forthcoming with his players, which myself and a lot of the guys really appreciate about him.”
The connection between Darnold and Kubiak gave the Seahawks the confidence to trade Smith to the Raiders. One day after completing the trade, Seattle signed Darnold to a three-year, $100.5 million contract.
Aftermath
It goes without saying how well all this worked out for Darnold and the Seahawks. They will take the field in Super Bowl 60 as the decided favorites over the Patriots.
Not so much for Carroll and Adofo-Mensah, who were fired by the Raiders and Vikings largely due to the confidence Carroll showed in Smith by trading for him, which created a quarterback void in Seattle, and Adofo-Mensah choosing McCarthy over Darnold, which paved the road for Darnold to reconnect with Kubiak in Seattle.
