As the Seattle Seahawks count down the final days before Super Bowl LX, the mood around the team has been outwardly confident.
Preparation is steady. Belief is high. And Sam Darnold, the quarterback at the center of it all, continues to project calm.
But beneath that calm sits a detail that has quietly followed Seattle for weeks.
Darnold has been playing through a left oblique strain since January 25—an injury suffered not in a game, but during practice.
For a quarterback headed to the Super Bowl, that alone is unsettling. Core injuries don’t announce themselves loudly. They linger. They affect mechanics. And they test pain tolerance more than toughness.
Still, Darnold never left the lineup.
He played through the injury in the Divisional Round, leading the Seahawks to a lopsided 41–6 win over the 49ers.
He followed that with a composed performance in the NFC Championship Game, throwing for 346 yards and three touchdowns against the Rams to secure Seattle’s spot on the sport’s biggest stage.
Only now are the full details beginning to surface.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Darlington, Darnold’s preparation over the past two games looked nothing like a typical playoff routine. He took pain-killing injections before both contests. His practice reps were limited. His workload was carefully managed.
And yet, inside the building, concern never turned into doubt.
Darlington reported that Darnold was “never nervous, never concerned,” and was considered “full go all along” by both head coach Mike Macdonald and general manager John Schneider. That confidence, according to team sources, came not from optimism—but from observation.
They watched how he handled it.
Despite the restrictions, Darnold’s play never wavered. His decision-making remained sharp. His arm strength didn’t visibly dip.
His command of the offense stayed intact. Each week that passed placed more distance between him and the initial injury, and with that distance came reassurance.
The phrase that stands out most from Darlington’s report is simple but loaded: closer to 100%.
It’s not a declaration. It’s a trajectory.
The Seahawks are expected to continue limiting Darnold’s throws during practice, not because of fear—but because there’s no need to push what’s already proven functional. In the postseason, he’s already shown he can operate at a high level while managing discomfort.
Darnold himself hasn’t leaned into the narrative. After the NFC Championship win, he spoke less about pain and more about environment.
“I feel that support,” he said. Not just from words, but from how people treat each other inside the building. Respect. Trust. Shared work.
That sentiment matters.
For a quarterback whose career once felt defined by instability, Darnold now finds himself in a locker room built on belief rather than panic. The injury didn’t fracture that belief. If anything, it reinforced it.
Statistically, his season backs that up. Darnold finished the regular year with over 4,000 passing yards, 25 touchdowns, a 67.7% completion rate, and just 14 interceptions. Those numbers didn’t evaporate under playoff pressure. They translated.
And yet, the quiet reality remains.
Super Bowls magnify everything—especially what’s already there. The injury isn’t gone. It’s managed. Controlled. Pushed into the background by performance and confidence.
Seattle insists there’s no concern heading into Sunday. The coaching staff trusts the plan. The locker room trusts the quarterback. And Darnold trusts himself.
But as kickoff approaches, one truth lingers beneath the optimism: the Seahawks are asking their quarterback to be great again—not just healthy enough.
So far, Sam Darnold has answered every question put in front of him.
The final one arrives on Sunday.
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