What a bold ass awesome year for these Seattle Seahawks. I mean it takes massive stones for general manager John Schneider to make the moves he did last offseason, and it takes icy conviction from head coach Mike Macdonald to get behind it all.

They started things off last offseason by trading away starting QB Geno Smith, who had some popularity amongst fans and members of the media, replacing him with Sam Darnold, who’s unfortunate outing in the playoffs last year for the Vikings left a soar taste in the mouth of many, and these two moves were met with a fair degree of lamentation, and head scratching. They also traded away star receiver DK Metcalf, and replaced him with 31 year old Cooper Kupp, who many felt was long past his prime. Even the free agent signing of DeMarcus Lawerence was met with skepticism, as was the drafting of left guard Grey Zabel in round one, and then trading up in round two for hybrid defender Nick Emmanwori.

“What are the Seattle Seahawks even going?”

“I cannot figure out what the Seattle Seahawks are even thinking.”

These were the common phrases uttered on ESPN, Fox Sports, The Ringer, and The Athletic by the cool kid likes of Mina Kimes, Nick Wright, Steven Ruiz, Bill Simmons, and Sheil Kapadia. None of these so called national stage experts were impressed with the work John Schneider was doing ten months ago, and all that has happened now is that he has earned Executive Of The Year honors, and the Seattle Seahawks are NFC champions on their way to the fourth Super Bowl appearance in their franchise history. F’ing fantastic.

It turns out the Sam Darnold is a significantly better NFL quarterback than Geno Smith is, Cooper Kupp is a more dependable receiver and better team leader than DK Metcalf is, DeMarcus Lawrence still has plenty of juice as a pass rusher and run defender, and Grey Zabel and Nick Emmanwori are every bit worth their draft statuses, and then some. It turns out that maybe perhaps John Schneider knows a thing or two more about professional football and roster construction than the cool kids in sports media and on the internet know, after all. Go figure.

For myself, I had all the confidence in the world with Schneider’s thought processing, and you are free to search through months of posts on this blog to track it on down as moves were being made. I was deeply in favor of moving off of 35 year old Geno Smith in favor of 28 year old Sam Darnold. I was fine with trading away DK, and I dug the Kupp and Lawrence signings. I was also clamoring for the drafting of Grey Zabel long before they made that selection in round one last April.

I needed the Seattle Seahawks to expel Pete Carroll holdovers, and replace them with Mike Macdonald fellas, and when I saw that Schneider was doing this, I was gleefully hand clapping at every single one of these moves. Even letting go of the hyper popular fan favorite Tyler Lockett was met with my approval.

Successful transitions need to be met with successive page turning. It is hard to transition in life without a properly cleansing, and that is what John Schneider decided this team needed most last Spring.

I have been a diehard Seattle Seahawks fan since 1983 when Chuck Knox took over the team from Jack Patera, and they made the playoffs for the first time in their young franchise history. I saw my favorite player Jim Zorn get replaced by one David Krieg at quarterback, and I saw Krieg guide the Seahawks to the AFC championship game. Ever since then, I have been obsessively hooked by this franchise, and I have seen all the patterns of what has led to successful campaigns, and what has led to unfortunate ones.

A successful head coach needs to have a strong vision for his team, he needs talent on the roster, and above else, he needs a quarterback spearheading the thing in ways that he can trust, and effectively lead in his image. Knox had that with Krieg, Mike Holmgren had that with Matthew Hasslebeck, Pete Carroll had that with Russell Wilson and then Geno Smith, and it appears as though Mike Macdonald has that with Sam Darnold, and he does not care about what your narratives have been about Slinging Sammy D. This is as meaningful for the way this franchise is set up for success as anything else it has going forward, period, and this is a big reason why I had faith in them this year to do something very special.

In fact, about two weeks ago, I wrote and published a piece on this blog that outlined my belief in the Seattle Seahawks having the stuff to be a Super Bowl winning team this year. It wasn’t a prediction that they would be, but a detailed reasoning as to why this could be a very special year for them, at least in my mind.

I posted this days before they hosted the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round, and I wasn’t nervous in the slightest about it being some sort of jinx on the team. I watched what Seattle did to San Francisco in week eighteen in Santa Clara, and I watched what the 49ers did to Philly on the road during wildcard weekend. Seattle felt like a significantly better team than San Francisco, and it played out that way last weekend. I had a feeling like they were going thrash the 49ers, and they did.

Now, the Los Angeles Rams, however, felt like a team that would properly test Seattle, and it would be a game that would likely come down to the wire. I wasn’t nearly as confident about this matchup for the Seahawks in days leading up to this game. The Rams pulled out a very tough win in the bitter cold of Chicago, and felt like a solid veteran club that was coming into Lumen Field fueled with tons of mojo.

For Seattle to win this game, I felt like they would have to really get on top of Matthew Stafford, get him off his game, and that Seattle would have to have a day running the football, and Sam Darnold would have to play a clean game in a very game managerial role at quarterback much like he had against San Francisco. I had confidence that they could do this, but I also had concerns about what would happen if they were forced to play another shootout like they had to play against this team a month ago at home.

Essentially, I felt like the Seahawks would have to beat these Rams in a very 2019 San Francisco 49er Jimmy Garoppolo sorta way of playing lights out defense, running the ball, and basically not fucking up at quarterback the few times they had to pass on critical downs. This was the game I was envisioning from them when I told a friend on Friday that I thought the Hawks could win this 24-20. Well, I got the point differential of this game correct, but the outcome of getting to it was anything but what I had expected.

Lo and behold, it turns out that on the day of the biggest game that Sam Darnold had ever played in as a professional quarterback, our Ginger Cuz played his butt off by out dueling one Matthew Stafford, perhaps the best quarterback on the planet right now, for the right to go to the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, and win the whole bloody thing on 49er turf. Un-fucking-believable.

Now, I know football is the ultimate team sport, and there were numerous big time players who stepped up for Seattle in this 31-27 victory over LA. I know Jaxon Smith Njigba showed huge, again, as did Ken Walker, and Cooper Kupp. I also know Nick Emmanwori and Devon Witherspoon came up big on defense, at times, and I know Michael Dickson had a killer night of punting, and Rashid Shaheed made yet another splashy play to affect the game. I see all of this.

But this, ladies and gentlemen, was Sam Darnold’s Game, and it simply could not have come at a better time of the whole entire year. In fact, this was the best time for it to show up.

Seattle’s defense was not affecting Stafford nearly as much as I was envisioning, nor hoping for. Additionally, the Rams defense had been playing well against Seattle’s run game in ways that I hadn’t really expected it would. While still playing through an oblique injury, the Seattle Seahawks needed Sam Darnold to beat the Rams in a shootout match, and he pulled off that exact thing that Stephen A Smith very outwardly doubted that he would be able to do this week.

Anyone who knows me well, or follows this blog along knows that I am a Sam Darnold believer. I make no bones about the fact that I feel like he is, physically, one of the most talented quarterbacks in the league, and in that, there exists upside in him to reasonably believe that he can be the franchise quarterback of the Seahawks for years to come. This is my firm belief in him.

And it feels like for a couple months now, I have been very actively pushing back on a bunch of lazy narratives around him in big games, and against the Rams, specifically. Well, ever since his one bad outing against the Rams on November 16th, all Sammy has done is to lead the Seattle Seahawks to win every single game the entire rest of the way to the motherf’ing Super Bowl. That is it. That it all.

You cannot say Sam Darnold can’t win big games now. You can’t. He’s been in big games all throughout the second half of the regular season, including that very wild TNF game rematch against the Rams where he threw two picks only to then lead Seattle to as dramatic of an overtime win with his arm as you will bare witness towards.

You also can’t say Sammy D can’t win playoff games. He helped take out the 49ers last week, and he took down the all world Rams last night with big time throw after big time throw, besting a Hall Of Fame level quarterback.

After last night’s outcome in this NFC championship game, not only do the narratives of Darnold need to change, but so do the broader narratives centering around the famed 2018 quarterback draft class that features Darnold along with Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Baker Mayfield. Sam Darnold is the first quarterback of that uniquely QB heavy class to make the Super Bowl. In two week’s time, he will have the chance to be the first of this group to win it.

There is, of course, no guarantee that he, and the Seahawks will win the thing in a couple weeks. Personally, I think the New England Patriots are anything but a pushover, but if Darnold plays anything close against them as he did against the team last night that everyone thought was his kryptonite (another dumb fucking narrative), I’m going to say that I like Seattle’s chances quite a bit in two week’s time.

What a bunch of shit that has been thrown at Darnold this year, too. Honestly, Stephen A Smith, Skip Bayless, and a whole slew of other big media blowhards can all give each other belt to ass beatings for how dumb they look after this game with their lazy season long Sam Darnold takes.

Here are Sam Darnold’s stats after this game, and you can read them and weep. He was 25 of 35 pass attempts for a completion percentage of 70 percent. He threw 346 yards for 3 TDs, 0 INTs, and he had a QB rating of 127.8.

The LA Ram defenders were highly unsuccessful at forcing Sam Darnold into seeing any ghosts. In fact, some of them might be having Darnold nightmares for the next few days and weeks.

That is top shelf stuff in this league for any QB in a championship game. You can have whatever views you want to have about him moving forward, but the narrations that he can’t shine in big moments just evaporated last night. Poof!

They are all gone now.

Not only do I believe that Slingin’ Sammy D is going to be the franchise QB in Seattle for a good while now, I think that’s he’s got the stuff to become the best quarterback in franchise history, period. I think he’s young enough still to grow and get better, and I believe he is very capable of doing just that. I also think that he has physical traits that are closer to Andrew Luck than say Jared Goff, who I compared him towards earlier this year.

He’s not a limited athlete like Goff and Brock Purdy are. He’s got an arm, and he got legs, and last night against the Rams, both were on display when Seattle needed plays from him.

But I do not mean to make this whole thing about Darnold and his very big night. I really don’t.

Jaxon Smith Njigba, again, showed the national viewing audience why he should be considered the very best receiver in the game, and the Offensive Player Of The Year this year. Nick Emmanwori also showed the world why he should rightly be the Defensive Rookie Of The Year as he was almost the only Seahawk defender to consistently show out last night against Stafford and his playmakers.

I will even say that Riq Woolen, with his absurdly untimely taunting penalty in the second half that gave the Rams new life and opportunity to add a touchdown, kept his composure and played well in the next defensive series. I don’t think his play was any worse than Devon Witherspoon getting beaten for yards against Puka Nucua and Davante Adams, and then finding the grit to critically defend the red zone to deny Stafford the opportunity to steal the game late on third and fourth downs.

Seattle’s defenders were going to be put to the test in this one. It was literally a game of best offense against best defense, and I underestimated how much they were going to be tested again in this one. My perception was that they would hold LA down in points, but the reality was that Puka and Stafford were going to make it an absolute heavy weight dog fight.

The truth of this game is that Seattle faced a true heavy hitter of an NFL franchise in the Los Angeles Rams that came into Lumen Field confidently ready to win this game, and go to the Super Bowl. Sean McVay gave Mike Macdonald’s vaunted defense everything it could handle as a play caller. He had the best QB in the game challenging it with perhaps the best receiver duo to throw at.

It was an epic dog fight. It was a grind. Stafford and company did not wilt like Brock Purdy and co did last week. They gave Seattle everything they could handle. They gave it their best shot, and in many ways, this game felt like the famed 2013 NFC championship game fought in Seattle against the 49ers with Colin Kaepernick in his prime.

And Sam Darnold, along with JSN, in the end, out dueled the Rams’ best efforts, along with the help of yet another Rams special teams fuck up, which of course, we will gladly take. Thank you for that, Los Angeles Rams.

But maybe now we should start saying that perhaps Darnold is maybe now LA’s kryptonite… just a wee little bit.

What do you say, Stephen A? How about you, Skip? Mike Florio?

Are you men enough to change face a little on that? It would be a whole lot cooler, if you did.

Go Hawks. This team fucking rocks.

Enjoy this time in history, Seahawk fans. These hard fought moments don’t come easily, or often. You can feel deeply proud of this team again. They earned that. All of them.

Go Hawks.