Five teams in eight NFL seasons. Sam Darnold has been cut, traded, benched, and written off more times than any quarterback starting a Super Bowl should be. He’s 28 years old. And that number matters more than you think.
There’s a weird little corner of Super Bowl history that nobody talks about. Journeyman quarterbacks don’t win championships in their early twenties. They don’t win them at 35 either. They win them at 28 and 29, almost without exception. Darnold walks into Levi’s Stadium on Sunday fitting that pattern so perfectly it’s almost suspicious.
Nick Foles Wrote This Script Already
The comparison everybody should be making isn’t Darnold to Russell Wilson or Darnold to Geno Smith. It’s Darnold to Nick Foles. And it isn’t close.
Foles was 29 when he beat the Patriots in Super Bowl LII. He’d been a backup, a castoff, a guy who literally considered retiring to become a pastor. The Eagles didn’t build around him. They built around Carson Wentz, Wentz got hurt, and Foles walked into the biggest game of his life with nothing to lose. He threw for 373 yards. He caught a touchdown on the Philly Special. He won MVP. Then he went back to being a journeyman. Signed with Jacksonville. Bounced to Chicago. Ended up in Indianapolis. Retired at 35 having started one meaningful game on a roster that wasn’t built for him.
Darnold’s career reads like Foles with better raw stats and worse luck. The Jets drafted him third overall in 2018 and gave him Jeremy Bates as an offensive coordinator. Carolina traded for him and then drafted Matt Corral. San Francisco signed him to hold a clipboard behind Brock Purdy. Minnesota let him throw for 4,319 yards and 35 touchdowns, then waved goodbye when J.J. McCarthy got healthy. Now he’s in Seattle, and the Seahawks went 14-3.
The difference between Foles and Darnold? Foles stumbled into his Super Bowl. Darnold earned his way here across two consecutive 14-win seasons with two different teams.
The 28-29 Club Is Real
Here’s what makes Darnold’s age so interesting. Look at the journeyman quarterbacks who’ve won Super Bowls, and look at how old they were:
| QB | Super Bowl | Age | Teams Before Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kurt Warner | XXXIV | 28 | Arena League, NFL Europe, Rams |
| Trent Dilfer | XXXV | 28 | Buccaneers, Ravens |
| Jeff Hostetler | XXV | 29 | Backup to Phil Simms for years |
| Mark Rypien | XXVI | 29 | Washington’s third-string-to-starter |
| Nick Foles | LII | 29 | Eagles, Rams, Chiefs, Eagles again |
| Sam Darnold | LX | 28 | Jets, Panthers, 49ers, Vikings, Seahawks |
That’s not a coincidence. That’s a pattern. At 28 or 29, these guys had been chewed up by the league long enough to learn what they didn’t know at 22. They’d sat behind better quarterbacks. They’d been humbled. And they landed on rosters good enough to carry them, or at least complement them, at exactly the right moment.
Warner stocked groceries and played Arena ball before the Rams gave him a shot. Dilfer won a ring with a Ravens defense that treated opposing offenses like a personal insult. Hostetler spent years behind Phil Simms before a broken foot gave him his chance. None of them were supposed to be there. All of them were 28 or 29 when it happened.
Darnold fits every piece of this. He’s on his fifth team. He’s 28. And Seattle’s defense gave up the fewest points in the NFL this season.
Seattle Built This Team the Dilfer Way
That last part matters. Darnold threw 14 interceptions during the regular season and led the league with 20 turnovers. His second-half numbers were ugly: nine touchdowns, nine picks over the final nine games. The Seahawks won eight of those nine anyway because Mike Macdonald’s defense was suffocating.
Sound familiar? Dilfer threw for 1,502 yards and 12 touchdowns in 11 regular season games the year Baltimore won it all. Nobody confused him for Joe Montana. The Ravens won because their defense allowed a league-low 165 points and the offense didn’t get in the way. Seattle’s 2025 season looks eerily similar. Darnold doesn’t need to be great on Sunday. He needs to be clean. His playoff numbers suggest he understands that: 37 of 53, 470 yards, four touchdowns, zero interceptions across two games.
Darnold’s been a different quarterback in January. Three touchdown passes in the NFC Championship. Zero turnovers in the entire postseason. Check where he sits in the daily QB rankings right now and you’ll see a guy trending up at exactly the right time.
Sunday Is the Whole Story
The narrative around Darnold has always been potential versus production. Five teams in eight years suggests the production never matched the arm talent. But the journeyman blueprint doesn’t require sustained greatness. Warner flamed out after his Super Bowl run with the Rams. Foles was a backup again within 18 months. Dilfer got released by the Ravens the offseason after winning it all. Got released. After winning a Super Bowl.
Darnold doesn’t need to be a Hall of Famer. He needs one Sunday. The Seahawks’ all-time quarterback rankings might not remember him as the franchise’s best, but a ring changes everything about how you tell someone’s story. Run the Super Bowl simulator enough times and you’ll find paths where Seattle wins this game comfortably. Darnold at 28, on his fifth team, with the league’s best defense behind him, staring down Drake Maye and a Patriots team that scored 10 points in the AFC Championship. The journeyman script is right there. He just has to follow it.
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