Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Nate Tice and fantasy analyst Matt Harmon discuss Seattle’s signing of the former Vikings quarterback and whether his late season play from 2024 is a harbinger of what’s to come behind a shaky offensive line. Hear the full conversation on “Football 301” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

For the Seahawks, now moving on to Darnold, they, to me, OK, again, it was a $3 or 10 $10 million.55 million dollars guaranteed, probably a little bit more than they were willing to give Gino, um, just kind of the rumor mill of everything.

It seemed like there’s kind of like a 5 to $10 million difference between Gino and what the Seahawks want him to give him.

Um, maybe there’s one of those Seahawks like, well, sorry, uh.

Once that move happened, it was like, all right, Dan’s going to the Seahawks because you don’t trade away your quarterback unless you have a plan.

And yes, Seahawks don’t have a Seahawks don’t have a top 5 pick, you know, so, all right, so OK, I’m doing the math there.

So I was willing to bet a lot that the that Darnold was going to the Seahawks.

Yeah, Clint Kubiak there, so you have the connection there.

Darnold and Kubiak were in San Francisco together.

Um, also, they said they’re getting younger.

I, I think that was some, some aspect of it.

This is a guy that maybe we can tap into more as he enters the prime of his career.

In theory, this is all theory.

This is just the line of thinking.

Donald, to me, I think is uh I, I liked a lot of what happened last year, and I know he tailed off in the last couple of weeks of the season, which a lot of people are saying that is the real Arnold.

It’s somewhere in the middle.

I thought a lot of the Vikings offensive line was because of that, because of those sacks that he took, which is also gets into where we’re at in Seattle, is that their offensive line is a little shaky, so that scares me a little bit.

But, but I think what Seahawks are trying to do is truly make a Shanahan Kuia offense, which is we’re going to help the offensive line out with our system, more zone runs, more bootlegs, more play action stuff.

Arnold’s very good off play action and on the move, and he’s a good athlete, can do all those things, quote unquote, knows the system, which That I hate saying that, but whatever, that’s what they’re going to say.

There this is the argument I think the Seahawks are making is that we’re going to make our run game better.

They’re probably going to add to their offensive line in some way, shape, or form.

Our offense system is going to be more too tight and heavy, and this is why the DK Metcalf trade probably happened as well.

I think DKF, I know we’re talking about Darnold, but I also want to say, I think there’s a big Disconnect between how Metcalf is viewed in the league and how the public views him, even as a, as a prospect.

And I think just even our conversation, we kind of hit on that a little bit.

I think that’s sloppiness I bring up.

I think Seahawks coaches and staff get frustrated with that and they just go, all right, we’re going to get a bunch of guys we can rely.

Yeah, they might not be as talented, but we want to have more reliable players.

That’s a big thing in the NFL is having reliable players.

It’s a sliding scale.

You have to be an absolute freak, top five guy, and we’ll let you, uh, you know, we’ll let you get away with some stuff, better bes as we call them a defense like you better be right.

Um, but I think that’s why they want to try and maybe revamp this team to get guys that are more trustworthy, whether, I don’t know why, if that’s talking about Gino, just talking about DK, but with Darnold, it’s, I think that same argument.

It’s like, hey, this is what we want to instill with this team.

This is what we want to go behind.

This is the quote unquote system that we want to be in.

And I think this is the offensive flow and philosophy we want to be in, and Darnold’s kind of like our version of that.

Darnold got benefit from Justin Jefferson.

Last year, absolutely, and benefited from that offensive system.

I don’t think the drop off is going to be, oh my God, dramatic.

This is crazy.

It’s going into the worst ecosystem ever, holy crap.

I think it’s more of an average-ish, above average ecosystem.

They just have to shore up the pressure and make sure that they don’t expect to put 40 pass plays on Donald.

They just have to be realistic with it.

I think they will be, but you have to be realistic.

But Donald gives you the high-end plays that I actually think that Gino can.

Um, Donald’s a good athlete, can run around a little bit.

He takes a lot of sacks, and that’s one negative thing, but I think this run game’s going to be a little better than the Vikings had because of just, I think the buy-in and the what the CFs are trying to do.

So I understand what they’re trying to do here.

I know no one’s really happy as I think in Seattle about this, but I, I think this is not as bad as maybe some people are making it out to be.

I actually think it’s going to be interesting, uh, is what I’m going to leave it at.

Yeah, I was gonna give it kind of the, the thumb in the middle, like not an outright thumbs down here, but like a thumb in the middle here.