Why CBS Sports ranked Seahawks Macdonald-Darnold Duo 3rd in NFL
· Yahoo Sports
CBS Sports’ Garrett Podell ranked the NFL’s top 10 quarterback-coach duos for 2026 Thursday morning, and put the Seattle Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald and Sam Darnold duo third only to the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Rams. Despite ranking behind their division rivals, Podell accurately laid out the reasons why Seattle is the only one of those three that’s ahead of schedule on their rebuild.
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Podell called Macdonald’s defense “Truly a coaching masterclass,” and said “the lens through which people view Darnold needs to change” about the Seahawks quarterback. Macdonald’s brief body of work speaks for itself after going 17-3 with a Super Bowl ring in year two. Darnold is punished for his past by fans, but when certain personnel departments look, they still see one of the best quarterback prospects of the last decade.
Ten years ago right now, Darnold was preparing for his redshirt freshman season as a backup for the University of Southern California Trojans, in which he’d take over for top prospect Max Browne after a miserable first three games. He went on to lead USC to an all-time great Rose Bowl victory and became the Heisman favorite the following season. Since then, he’s suffered from poor situations and played hero-ball, from his final year with the Trojans, to the New York Jets, the Carolina Panthers, and the San Francisco 49ers. He made the Minnesota Vikings look as good as possible and they still didn’t keep him. His arm talent is criminally underrated, though. Hard Knocks’ spin rate segment tried to get that message across—he leads the NFL in one of the most important indicators 2026’s football physics can offer. You could only say that about 5-6 quarterbacks in the league.
This offseason, nearly every team who didn’t just win the Lombardi Trophy felt far more pressure than the Seahawks. As a result, John Schneider was the only general manager of a contender who didn’t make a flurry of panicked, win-now moves. The biggest moves the Seahawks made this offseason came in the form of extensions for almost all of their best players who didn’t recently sign one—Jaxon Smith-Njigba first, then Devon Witherspoon, and most recently Leonard Williams. They also prioritized re-signing Drake Thomas and Josh Jobe, defensive depth pieces who competed to earn starting roles, over higher draft picks and bigger names. They stuck at their draft spot and picked Jadarian Price at No. 32 in the draft, replacing Kenneth Walker III—who filled the Chiefs’ need for an impact signing—with a younger option rather than getting cute with moving assets around for value’s sake. He may have been the Super Bowl LX MVP, but he was having a lackluster year until December, too, before putting in historic performances in nearly every one of their biggest games down the stretch.
Zooming out, though, what does it say that John Schneider and company acted the most confident of any personnel department this off-season? Let us know @TheSeahawksWire on X.
This article originally appeared on Seahawks Wire: Why CBS Sports ranked Seahawks Macdonald-Darnold Duo 3rd in NFL