Sam Darnold And Seahawks Offense Turnover Free In Week 12 Win Over Tennessee

After committing four turnovers in last week’s loss to the Rams, Sam Darnold and the offense played a cleaner game Sunday to help the Seahawks to a win over the Titans.

Nov 23, 2025 at 05:41 PM

John Boyle

Seahawks.com Senior Reporter

NASHVILLE—A week after his worst game as a Seahawk, Sam Darnold bounced back with a big performance to help lead the Seahawks to a 30-24 win over the Titans.

It was an outcome that surprised precisely no one who has been around the Seahawks quarterback and watched him work this season.

Darnold, who threw four interceptions in last week's loss to the Rams, threw for 244 yards and two touchdowns—both of them to Jaxon Smith-Njigba—giving him a 118.1 passer rating, his seventh game in the last nine with a ratting of 111.4 or better. And it was Darnold's 63-yard touchdown to Smith-Njigba early in the second quarter, another perfectly thrown deep ball in a season full of them, that helped spark Seattle's offense.

"Actually, he was a spark for us," Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. "The big touchdown to Jax (Smith-Njigba), to see his emotion and his excitement I thought really got the team going, which is something that we needed. Like we said, same guy. He just ripped it, did a great job. There are some plays that we want to improve on and we want back, and we'll learn from those plays just like the rest of the team, but I thought Sam played good football today."

As Macdonald mentioned, there were a few throws Darnold would want back, including a ball that got tipped up at the goal line and a throw behind Kenneth Walker III that was almost intercepted, but overall it was a much-improved performance for Seattle's quarterback after a rough outing in Los Angeles.

Throughout the week, coaches and teammates expressed their full confidence in Darnold, noting that one performance wouldn't faze him or change how he does things, and Darnold backed that up on Sunday.

"I think my process has always been there," he said. "I think it was just a better outcome this week. I think that's about it."

Said left tackle Charles Cross, "Just the way he preps for the game, he puts a lot of work in throughout the week. Just doing his job play after play, we believe in him and have his back no matter what."

Part of what Macdonald and Seahawks players liked about Darnold's performance was that he not only took care of the ball, he did it while continuing to take aggressive shots downfield. The league's leader in yards per attempt and yards per completion, Darnold did not shy away from throwing down field again even after a tough game a week earlier.

"He's going to be Sam Darnold," said receiver Cooper Kupp. "Do his little fist pump thing back there. It was great to see. No one's surprised that he came out firing, being aggressively smart. But regardless of whatever last week was, come out here and play football, and we knew Sam was going to do that."

With Darnold playing better, the Seahawks did not commit a turnover on Sunday, just their second turnover-free game this season. In their previous four games, the Seahawks had 12 turnovers, giving them a league-leading 20 heading into Week 12.

"Obviously, it's a major point of emphasis to play great football," Macdonald said. "We're talking about finishing drives with the ball in the end zone. That's what we want to do. We want to finish in the red zone, and obviously we want to hold on to it. Guys did a good job of that. The ball was in jeopardy a couple times. The ball hit the guy in the chest once and the ball was up in the air, so we've got to look at that and make sure we're cleaning those things up."

Said Kupp, "Yeah, that's huge. We obviously can't continue to do what we've been doing. That's not a sustainable process. It's not a sustainable model for us and we definitely have to do better than that. So, it's good to see."