Rich’s Message to Seattle Seahawks Fans Who Want to Bench Sam Darnold

Dakota from Arizona called in as a diehard, lifelong Seahawks fan with a question that would have sounded insane in February: when do we bench Sam?

His case was that the reigning champs look hit or miss, that Sam Darnold is "looking like he's back on the Jet," and that a Bryce Young style reset on the bench might rekindle the fire. Somewhere in the pitch, almost in passing, he mentioned that Darnold had put the Seahawks in position to win last year and, "of course, we won the Super Bowl."

Rich could not let that slide.

"Did you just yada yada yada a Lombardi Trophy?" he asked. "Did I just hear that? Because come on, man."

The call landed the morning after a Thursday night loss to Denver that dropped Seattle to 3-3, and Rich's answer was to point at what is missing rather than who is under center. If fans are wondering where the mojo went, he said, it might be in the backfield in Kansas City. Kenneth Walker III, as Rich put it, is coming off his bye after four games in which he is a quarter of the way to a 2,000-yard season.

The receiver side of the operation, meanwhile, looks fine. Rich argued Jaxon Smith-Njigba has been better through the first six weeks than he was over the last six weeks of last regular season, and he singled out one late catch against Denver as the kind of play that explains why everyone was stunned when Smith-Njigba didn't come up with one against the Niners.

Darnold, to his credit, owned the turnovers. The show played his postgame comments, and they were blunt. "I just think it's BS, you know, for me to keep turning the ball over, and it's not fair to our defense, not fair to our special teams group, not fair really to the entire team," Darnold said. "So I got to be better that way."

That, Rich suggested, is the difference between Darnold and Bo Nix this week. The defense is "spectacular," and Darnold "just needs to play better and he knows it." Benching him for Drew Lock after a few subpar starts? Even the studio's resident overreaction specialist called that extreme.

There was pushback in the studio, with the argument that Seattle needs better balance. The Seahawks threw it 51 times against 26 rushes, a ratio the crew compared to the Rams going 54 and 23 on Monday night. Rich countered that balance isn't the whole answer. Denver was nearly perfectly balanced at 27 passes and 28 rushes, and the Seahawks actually ran it better. What a struggling quarterback really needs, he said, is "a running back who can just run through people."

He anticipated the 12s who will tell him he doesn't watch enough Seattle football. Fine. He is looking at what Walker looks like right now, and wondering whether this team would be 3-3 and talking about turnovers with him.

As for the outlier argument on Darnold's last two seasons, Rich had a one-line answer. A 14-win season one year and a Super Bowl the next? "I'll take that outlier."

Next up for Seattle: Kansas City on Sunday night, then Chicago on Monday night, at home, against two stout opponents.