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."