Sunday’s Seahawks-Rams game features a subplot that neither Matthew Stafford nor Sam Darnold figures to care much about — the race for the NFL MVP award — but one that will be fun for everyone else.
For Stafford and Darnold, whose teams are each 7-2 and sharing the lead in the NFC West, the real prize this season is winning the division, potentially getting the top seed in the NFC, and then possibly using that as a launching pad to the Super Bowl.
A win Sunday when the two teams play at 1:05 p.m. at SoFi Stadium will go a long way toward accomplishing that goal.
But in getting a win, either Stafford or Darnold would also likely make an even stronger case for themselves as MVP.
Each is suddenly considered a serious threat to win the award after beginning the season far off the rail of the contenders.
Stafford, in fact, is listed second in the odds this week by FanDuel at plus-240, just behind New England’s Drake Maye, who is plus-230.
That’s a far cry from where he was when the season began when he was at plus-5000, tied for 17th of all NFL players.
Darnold was just behind Stafford when the year began, tied for 20th at plus-6000.
Darnold has likewise made a pretty meteoric rise, standing sixth this week at plus-1100.
In between Stafford in second and Darnold in sixth are Colts running back Jonathan Taylor and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes at plus-650 and Buffalo QB Josh Allen at plus-750.
Allen, (2024), Mahomes (2023) and Baltimore QB Lamar Jackson (2022) won the award the last three years.
But with none of their teams leading their division at the moment, and Jackson also dealing with injuries, the door has opened wide for an interloper.
Maye, a second-year QB who was 3-9 as a starter last season, is the most surprising of those at the top.
But with the Patriots at a stunning 9-2 and Maye boasting a 20-5 TD-to-INT ratio and throwing for an NFL-best 2,836 yards, his case is hard to ignore.
But so are the growing résumés of Stafford and Darnold.
Neither has been close to an MVP before, which might seem surprising in the case of the 37-year-old Stafford, who is ninth in NFL history in passing yards with 62,236.
Stafford has gotten votes only once, in 2023, when he finished eighth. Darnold also has gotten votes only once, finishing 10th last season.
It’s worth remembering that until 2022, it was difficult for many players to get votes as the members of the 50-person voting panel simply selected one MVP and that was it.
But in 2022 the format changed, and voters now select a top five.
Recall that Geno Smith got one fifth-place vote in 2022, making him the first Seahawk to get a vote of any kind since Bobby Wagner in 2014, and meaning he had — and still has — more votes than Russell Wilson, who famously never got a vote during his time in Seattle.
Before Wagner got his vote in 2014 — from Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy — no Seahawk had gotten a vote since Shaun Alexander won the award in 2005, the only Seahawk to ever do so.
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Let’s look at the case for Darnold and Stafford as they head into the first of two scheduled showdowns this season.
Sam Darnold
Age: 28
Season stats: 162-228 passing, 71.1 completion percentage, 17 touchdowns, six interceptions, 116.5 passer rating, 77.7 QBR (ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating), 10 sacks, two game-winning drives.
Notable: Darnold not only leads the NFL in QBR but also in yards per attempt (9.9), yards per completion (14.0) and net yards per attempt (9.24), which accounts for yards lost due to sacks. His 10 sacks taken is also the fewest. He also tied a franchise-record with 17 straight completions against Washington.
As ESPN noted this week, Darnold’s 9.9 yards per attempt is the fourth-highest mark through nine games in NFL history and highest since Kurt Warner of the Rams in 2020 (10.0). Prior to that you have go to back to Norm Van Brocklin of the Rams in 1954 (10.1).
And as NFL NextGen Stats noted this week, Darnold’s high yards-per-completion number isn’t due to getting a lot of yards after the catch from receivers.
Illustrating how accurately Darnold has been passing, he has the most air yards per attempt at 9.6 (meaning, how far the ball traveled), the lowest wide-open target percentage (16.7) and the lowest yards after catch percentage (only 38.9% of his total yards came after the catch.
Comment: Darnold’s success this year is proving that his breakout season last year with the Vikings was no fluke.
“I’ve seen a lot of the same things that made him great last year in Minnesota,’’ Rams coach Sean McVay said this week. “I think he’s in a really good system. I think he does an excellent job of recognizing whatever the coverages are and being able to get the ball where it should be. You can see he does a great job of playing in time and in rhythm. He can activate all parts of the field and then some really cool stuff happens when he goes off-schedule. He has the athleticism to be able to buy time, keep his eyes down the field. You can see there’s a rapport with his skill players that they’re able to work off of him. I’m seeing a guy that’s playing with a lot of confidence that’s been earned.’’
Matthew Stafford
Age: 37.
Season stats: 208-310 passing, 67.1 completion percentage, 25 touchdowns, two interceptions, 114.8 passer rating, 69.2 QBR, 14 sacks, one game-winning drive.
Notable: Stafford has been on a particularly hot stretch of late. He has thrown four or more touchdown passes and no interceptions in each of the last three games, the first QB in NFL history to pull that off. He also has thrown 22 straight touchdown passes without an interception, the second-longest streak in NFL history behind only a 26-TD stretch by Tom Brady in 2010, a season Brady won the MVP. He also became the first QB in NFL history with 20 TDs and no interceptions in a six-game span.
Comment: Stafford’s hot start comes after a training camp that was filled with rumors about his future due to a back injury that held him out the first month of training camp.
Maybe the rest did him good as he’s not only compiled unworldly stats but also has continued to display the wide array of creative passes — no-looks and side arms, specifically — that have defined his career.
“Honestly, he just does some freakish stuff sometimes on film,’’ said Seahawks defensive lineman Leonard Williams. “There are times when he has his back completely turned to the receiver and he’s getting sacked and pressured and he throws the ball over his shoulder without even looking and makes a completion down the field. And it is impressive. But at the same time, I think every week, every quarterback, as much pressure as we can get in his face, as many times as we can hit him, it will affect him. It affects every quarterback.”
Let round one of Seahawks-Rams and Darnold-Stafford decide who has the leg up in both the NFC West and the MVP race.
Darnold’s goal Sunday is to make a case for the Seahawks. If he makes one for himself, all the better.
Bob Condotta: bcondotta@seattletimes.com. Bob Condotta is a sports reporter at The Seattle Times who primarily covers the Seahawks but also dabbles in other sports. He has worked at The Times since 2002, reporting on University of Washington Husky football and basketball for his first 10 years at the paper before switching to the Seahawks in 2013.