Sam Darnold Is A Normal Super Bowl Champion

You could see what the Patriots were up to from the first drive of the game. They blitzed Sam Darnold without hesitation and instructed the defensive backs to undercut routes as much as possible. A wager was being made: If we make this guy as uncomfortable as possible, eventually the old Sam Darnold will reappear.

It wasn't a bad bet. Yes, Darnold led his Seahawks team to a 14-3 record and then all the way to the Super Bowl, but he also turned the ball over 20 times in the regular season, and last season's playoff meltdown against the Rams was hard to forget. So too were all those infamous seasons with the Jets, when Darnold was fighting for his life and "seeing ghosts." Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and his staff took all this into account, and reasonably concluded that the best way to win Super Bowl LX was to break Darnold.

For a while it felt like Vrabel's bet might hit. Even as the Seahawks kept chipping in field goals, the game was screaming for a momentum-shifting strip sack or interception. Who better to serve one up than the guy who was defined by such mistakes throughout his first six seasons as a pro, and who was now facing a ferocious defense that had tilted all of its focus towards creating a turnover? The few times the broadcast zoomed in on Darnold's face prior to the snap, you could see his wild eyes darting across the line of scrimmage, and it was fair to wonder if the ghosts were back.