Sam Darnold’s Super Bowl Bet Hits a Hip MRI

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold lasted five plays in the Super Bowl rematch, then left Lumen Field for scans on his right hip. Doctors later ruled out a fracture. An MRI on Thursday will decide how long the champions play without the quarterback they signed to a $100.5 million deal.

Drew Lock finished the night, and the Seahawks beat the New England Patriots 13-10 after Drake Maye threw three fourth-quarter interceptions.

Five Plays Into a Super Bowl Defense

The night opened with the Super Bowl LX banner going up, a Week 1 rematch Seattle had already won 29-13 in February. Darnold completed 1 of 2 passes for 13 yards on a five-play, 30-yard first series, then Dre’Mont Jones, a former Seahawk now rushing for Mike Vrabel, sacked him on third-and-6.

Darnold landed on his right knee, waved trainers away, and still made it to the sideline without help. The limp arrived after he sat. He went into the blue tent during New England’s first possession and walked to the locker room with a heavy hitch on the right side as Lock took the second drive.

Seattle first listed him as questionable, then ruled him out before halftime. The offensive line that started together through 2025, when Darnold was sacked 27 times, had not kept him upright for a full series of the title defense.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT AT LUMEN FIELD

1. Sept. 9, opening drive: Jones sacks Darnold on third-and-6 to end a five-play, 30-yard series, and the quarterback limps off after first waving staff away.
2. Sept. 9, first quarter: Darnold is checked in the medical tent, then walks to the locker room for X-rays as Lock enters.
3. Sept. 9, before halftime: Seattle downgrades him from questionable to out with a right hip injury, trailing 7-0.
4. Sept. 9, after the win: A CT scan at Harborview Medical Center is encouraging and inconclusive; an MRI is set for Thursday.

Adam Schefter said Darnold was at Harborview for that CT. Ian Rapoport, the NFL Network insider, later said the X-ray and CT left the club believing he had avoided major injury, with the MRI still to come.

The Contract Still Runs Through 2027

Seattle traded Geno Smith to the Las Vegas Raiders in March 2025 and signed Darnold the same week. Over The Cap still lists the three-year, $100.5 million contract at $33.5 million a year, with $55 million guaranteed.

The structure was a prove-it deal dressed as a starter’s payday. Over The Cap records $37.5 million fully guaranteed at signing, with another $17.5 million of 2026 salary vesting on the fifth day of last spring’s waiver period. The club could have walked after the Super Bowl. It did not.

Darnold had just gone 14-3 with the Minnesota Vikings, throwing for 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. In Seattle he completed 67.7 percent for 4,048 yards, 25 touchdowns, and 14 interceptions, started every game, and became the only quarterback to win a title with a fifth NFL team or later. He is one of six active Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks. He had also played all 17 regular-season games in each of the past two years, a 34-game streak that ended on the first series of 2026.

DARNOLD’S SEAHAWKS CONTRACT BY YEAR

The remaining money is the part of the bet that is still live. A clean MRI keeps the 2027 decision on the field. A long absence hands that decision to Lock and to Jalen Milroe, the third-round pick Seattle took in the same offseason it signed Darnold.

Drew Lock Finally Played the Patriots

Lock, 29, had a ring from Super Bowl LX and almost no snaps to go with it. Seattle brought him back in April 2025 on a two-year, $5 million deal to sit behind Darnold. He attempted three passes last season. On Wednesday he inherited the same Patriots defense he had watched from the sideline in February.

He went 6 of 8 for 51 yards in the first half, including an 8-yard completion to Jaxon Smith-Njigba on his first throw, and the offense did not cross field-goal range before the break. Four offensive penalties in the first two quarters included an offside that wiped out a fourth-and-1 sneak by tight end AJ Barner after Lock had hit Smith-Njigba for 21 yards on third-and-22.

We’ve got faith in Drew, and he’s settled into the game now, so we should be able to execute our game plan. But that’s why we say 12 is one. We’ve got to pick him up.

Mike Macdonald, Seahawks head coach, to NBC at halftime

Lock’s career ledger is 10-18 as a starter, 6,369 passing yards, 34 touchdowns, and 28 interceptions at a 59.6 percent clip. His last real Seattle run was 2023, when Geno Smith’s groin injury gave him two starts. He went 1-1 with 543 yards, three touchdowns, three interceptions, and a 63.2 percent completion rate. The 2026 version had to wait until the fourth quarter to look like a starter in a game that counted.

What the Hip Scans Have Ruled Out

The first medical read on the sack was ugly. Darnold could limp, which argued against a dislocation, and the knee driving into the turf loaded the back of the hip. David Chao, a former NFL head team physician, named a posterior wall acetabular fracture as the worry, the kind of socket break that can end a season and send a player to injured reserve for months.

That is the fear the CT answered. Macdonald told the room the club got great news back and that doctors do not believe the hip is fractured. Rapoport wrote that doctors ruled out a fracture after the X-ray and CT, and that the MRI on Thursday is the final word. Chao’s follow-up was that return still depends on that MRI, and that a short trip to injured reserve is not off the table.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The joint: The injury is to Darnold’s right hip after he landed on his right knee on Jones’s sack.
• The bone: X-rays were negative, and the Harborview CT was used to rule out a fracture of the hip socket.
• The next test: An MRI on Thursday is meant to look at labrum, cartilage, and other soft tissue.
• The calendar: Seattle visits the Arizona Cardinals on Sept. 20, an 11-day gap after the opener.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The tissue: A labral tear, bone bruise, or muscle strain has not been diagnosed in public.
• The absence: There is no official timetable, and Macdonald has not named a Week 2 starter.
• The list: Short-term injured reserve remains possible if the MRI is worse than the CT.

Until that scan posts, the live question is how many weeks, not whether 2026 is over. A socket fracture would have been a different season. Soft tissue still decides whether Lock is a one-night story or a month of it.

Three Interceptions Bought a 13-10 Win

Lock did not steal the game so much as hold the ball until the defense took it. Maye, last season’s MVP runner-up, threw three interceptions in the fourth quarter, and Seattle scored 10 points after those mistakes. The Seahawks had been held to a field goal through three quarters and trailed 10-0 after New England’s only two scores.

HOW SEATTLE CAME BACK FROM 10-0

• Patriots touchdown: After Josh Jobe’s pass-interference flag on a flea-flicker to A.J. Brown, Maye hit rookie tight end Eli Raridon from 2 yards for a 7-0 lead.
• Patriots field goal: Chazz Surratt’s roughing-the-punter penalty set up Andy Borregales from 50 yards, and New England led 10-0.
• Seahawks field goal: Seattle’s first points were a third-quarter kick that made it 10-3.
• The tying throw: After Nehemiah Pritchett intercepted Maye, Lock hit Smith-Njigba for 45 yards on fourth-and-1 to tie the game at 10-10.
• The lead: Julian Love intercepted Maye on the next series, and Jason Myers kicked a 26-yard field goal for 13-10.
• The seal: Jobe made a toe-tapping interception in the end zone in the final minute after Maye drove into range to tie or take the lead.

It was the third Super Bowl rematch to open a season, the first since Denver beat Carolina in 2016. The banner night ended 1-0 because Maye kept giving the ball back, not because Lock carved up Vrabel’s front for 60 minutes. The win still counts. The quarterback who won the last meeting with New England did not take a second-half snap.

Jalen Milroe Waited in an Emergency Jersey

Ourlads listed three quarterbacks on the roster on Wednesday, and the third one was dressed as an emergency. If Lock had gone down too, the rules would have allowed Milroe into the game. He was otherwise inactive.

SEATTLE’S QUARTERBACK LINE ON SEPT. 9

• Sam Darnold: The Super Bowl starter, out after the first series, scheduled for an MRI on Thursday.
• Drew Lock: The $5 million veteran who threw three passes last year and then closed a 13-10 win.
• Jalen Milroe: The 2025 third-round pick from Alabama, an emergency third quarterback as a rookie who logged three carries for 4 yards and zero pass attempts.

Milroe was the hedge inside the Darnold bet. Seattle did not spend a first-round pick on a quarterback when it moved on from Smith. It spent a third-rounder on an athlete and $5 million on a veteran who already knew the building. Five snaps into the defense of the title, that depth chart stopped being theoretical.

Lock now has tape from a prime-time win over the club he could not face in February. He also has whatever the MRI does to Darnold’s week. Macdonald’s halftime faith is about to get a longer look if Thursday’s scan keeps the starter in a walking boot or a meeting room.

The MRI on Thursday is the next hard fact. The Cardinals on Sept. 20 are the first game that scan can steal.