Sam Darnold went down with a hip injury on the sixth play of the season, and that really sucks. Luckily, an MRI showed his hip isn’t broken; it's just some kind of muscle strain. That said, it’s just week one, and there’s still a whoooole lot of football left for the only team that has a chance to win back-to-back Super Bowls. These kinds of muscle injuries have a way of showing their ugly faces again somewhere down the line.
Right now, Drew Lock is going to be the guy going forward for at least a week. He ended up doing okay against the Patriots on Wednesday … But we’ve lived through the Drew Lock Experience, and it’s been ugly. If Seattle wanted to make a trade to get a new quarterback before they drop very winnable games, it’d be hard to blame them.
The Drew Lock Experience
When Drew Lock came in against the Patriots, it was rocky. The offense had a total of 285 yards, and 189 of them were passing yards. It was pretty gross for the first 45 minutes as 40 percent of the total yards and 47 percent of the passing yards happened in the fourth quarter.
It was Week 1, and there was plenty of blame to spread around … But Lock has historically been pretty stinky.
Since the Broncos traded Lock away in 2022, he’s started in seven games; his record in those games is 2-5. He’s 151-of-245 (61.6 percent) for 1,548 yards, nine touchdowns, and seven interceptions. Most importantly, in his five losses, his teams have scored an average of 13.5 points … That’s very rough.
He cannot keep that trend going because in Week 2 the Seahawks play the Cardinals and in Week 3 it’s the Commanders … Two of the most winnable games on their entire schedule. In a mega-competitive NFC West, they can’t afford a slip-up.
Luckily, if they want to trade for a guy, they have some options. We’re starting by looking at teams with four quarterbacks on their roster. That’s the Eagles, the Falcons, the Steelers, and the Vikings.
After that, we want to look at quarterbacks who have played either in a Shanahan or Shanahan-adjacent offense. That leaves us with one person … Carson Wentz.
Go and get you a Carson Wentz, hoss
First of all: Yes, Carson Wentz is still playing football, and he didn’t die during that Week 8 game last year where the Chargers abused him. Second, he’s QB2 on the Vikings roster.
Don’t forget that he played relatively well in his four starts prior to that game. He was moving the offense, and his arm still looked alive. There were those boneheaded interceptions from when he played hero-ball … But hey, that’s Carson Wentz.
On top of that, he’s got a lot of experience in different offenses. He spent time with Frank Reich, Scott Turner, Sean McVay, Andy Reid, and Kevin O’Connell. He should be able to pick up what Seattle is doing with Brian Fleury.
To sum it up:
- He’s on a one-year contract for $3 million, so he’s not going to be super expensive.
- He’s got 99 games of starting experience under his belt.
- He’s got a very low floor, but he’ll also get the ball to playmakers and let them win.
As for the Vikings side of this: Let’s pretend for a minute that they weren’t blatantly lying by saying there was a camp competition between Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy … and also that McCarthy is now the QB3 on their depth chart … Let’s pretend all of that:
The Vikings should be moderately confident their offense wouldn’t be a train wreck if McCarthy has to take snaps.
By no means am I a trade-value guru, and I have no idea what a new general manager like Nolan Teasley would want for a QB2 … But if I were John Schneider, I’d call Teasley up and start the conversation with a 2027 fifth-round pick.
It could also be a player-for-player trade. The Vikings don’t have a whole lot of depth, pretty much anywhere, but we did just see a bunch of depth-level defensive backs make plays against Drake Maye and the Patriots.
Seattle will be getting Nick Emmanwori and Ty Okada back before too long, so if they wanted to send Rodney Thomas to Minnesota, it wouldn’t be totally nuts.
It’s a bummer that this is the situation the Seahawks are in, but John Schneider is an elite general manager. He’s a hell of a guy to trust in a spot like this.
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