There were more than a few positives to take away from the Seattle Seahawks' close loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 1. Sam Darnold's performance wasn't one of them.
In his Seahawks debut, the QB struggled to move the ball down the field. He was limited to just 150 passing yards and finished with a forgettable quarterback rating of 56.2. But his mediocre production could have been excused if it wasn't for one costly fumble.
With a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter, Darnold fumbled the ball without being hit by a defender. The 49ers recovered, ending Seattle's best chance to take the lead.
Seahawks players blaming each other for Sam Darnold's fumble
As if the turnover wasn't bad enough, players have started blaming each other for the mishap after the game.
This is turning into a classic whodunnit. Multiple Seahawks players told conflicting stories about the game-changing play. On the field, it looked like the ball flew out of Darnold's hand as he started his throwing motion. His hand did come close to the back of right tackle Abe Lucas before the ball came free, but it was difficult to tell whether Lucas actually touched it.
His quarterback certainly thinks he did. After the game, Darnold told reporters, "It came out off somebody... I think it was off of one of our offensive linemen's back." He added, "It didn't slip out, or anything."
But Lucas had an entirely different take on the play. He said that he didn't feel the ball hit his back, and that he would have tried to recover the fumble if he had.
Head coach Mike Macdonald sided with Lucas, saying, "I didn't ask him, but it did look like it just slipped out of his hand. It didn't look like they made contact. It looked like it just slipped as his hand was going backwards."
It's worth noting that Darnold has had issues with fumbles in the past. He put the ball on the ground eight times with the Vikings in 2024, though the opposing defense made just four recoveries. Whether this specific play was his fault or not, he does have a history of ball security issues.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who caused the fumble. The ball came out, and the 49ers recovered it. The result is the same, no matter who is at fault. The real issue is that nobody is willing to take the blame. Ideally, you'd want your leader at quarterback to take the fall for something like this and move forward. Instead, it has turned into a distraction that this team doesn't need.