The top quarterback in free agency is off the board after Sam Darnold agreed to a three-year, $100.5 million contract with the Seattle Seahawks, ushering in a new era of football in the Pacific Northwest alongside second-year head coach Mike Macdonald.
Darnold was drafted No. 3 overall by the New York Jets in 2018, and played for the Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers before earning his first Pro Bowl nod with the Minnesota Vikings in a breakout season last year.
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“I want to ask, are you OK with the direction of the Seattle Seahawks organization?” Gee Scott, co-host of “The Gee and Ursula Show,” asked on “Seattle’s Morning News.”
“I was skeptical,” Charlie Harger, host of “Seattle’s Morning News,” answered. “I’m not a guy who likes change and I was a little skeptical, especially hearing DK leaving, hearing Tyler Lockett leaving. But if change is going to happen, let’s just do it.”
“Not comfortable, but I feel good about it,” David Burbank, producer of “Seattle’s Morning News,” added.
Before Darnold’s 14-win season last year, where he threw a career-high 4,319 yards and 35 touchdowns, he netted just a 21-35 record as a starting quarterback and has only started 10 or more games in a season just five times. But Darnold’s lack of a consistent track record is not scaring off Gee Scott.
“Somebody hit me up on social media yesterday and said, ‘Gee, you are always just pro Seahawks no matter what they do,’ to which I say, you’re not wrong. I am pro Seahawks,” Gee said. “I’m not going to try to get you guys to believe the way I believe when it comes to this team, but here are some things to think about for a second. First, when Pete Carroll got here, the media didn’t like it. The fans didn’t like it. And you know what? There were people in the building, and I remember this because I was there every day, and they didn’t like it. Nobody really liked Pete Carroll being here.
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“Sometimes you got to get uncomfortable to make a breakthrough,” Gee continued. “That’s the problem in life. A lot of us get too comfortable. Stay in situations, relationships and other things that we probably shouldn’t be in, but we stay in them because we’re comfortable and we don’t like the feeling of being uncomfortable. As the old saying goes, sometimes you got to go through it to get to it.”
Listen to the full conversation here:
Frank Sumrall is a content editor atMyNorthwest and producer of the Seattle Seahawks podcast,The Reset with Gee Scott. You can read his storieshere and you can email himhere.