5 things learned on 2026 Seahawks at NFL combine, including Sam Darnold’s deal
Sam Darnold sure played better than the 18th-best quarterback for in the NFL, eh?
Let’s see: The Seahawks QB surpassed Dak Prescott, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Jordan Love, Trevor Lawrence, Tua Tagovailoa, Jared Goff, Brock Purdy, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, Kyler Murray, Deshaun Watson, Kirk Cousins, Patrick Mahomes. All 15 of them combined for one playoff win. Total.
Darnold was absolutely better in the season that just ended than Geno Smith, the man he replaced as Seattle’s QB, was for Las Vegas.
In fact, using the ultimate, bottom-line measure, one could argue Darnold surpassed Matthew Stafford. Stafford was the NFL’s most valuable player for this past season. Yet Darnold and the Seahawks beat Stafford’s Los Angeles Rams twice in five weeks to win the NFC. It was Darnold, not Stafford, who raised the Vince Lombardi Trophy immediately following Super Bowl 60 on Feb. 8...
...and again at the parade through downtown Seattle in Darnold’s and his team’s honor three days later.
Stafford, Smith—heck Cousins, who isn’t the regular starter anymore in Atlanta and Watson, who didn’t even play for Cleveland this past season—plus all the above QBs, all have contracts with richer annual average salaries than Darnold’s.
And that doesn’t sound like it’s going to change.
Days after Seahawks general manager John Schneider and coach Mike Macdonald traded Smith to the Las Vegas Raiders last March, Seattle signed Darnold. He got a three-year contract worth $100.5 million, with another $15 million available in bonuses. That made the 28-year-old Darnold the league’s 18th-highest-paid quarterback, per average annual value.
Darnold’s maximum average is $33.5 million per season. That is $4 million less than the Raiders gave Smith, who is seven years older.
Talk at the NFL combine this past week, including from NFL sources to The News Tribune in Indianapolis, was the Raiders and new coach Klint Kubiak will release Smith this offseason. Why? Smith went 2-13 for Las Vegas and led the league in interceptions in 2025.
Schneider said this week at the combine he wants Darnold to be the Seahawks’ quarterback for “a long time.” Why wouldn’t he?
So what’s next for Seattle’s newest sports darling?
Schneider has set and repeated a precedent in his 16 years as Seahawks GM. He does not extend foundational players until they are entering the final year of their contracts.
Yet Darnold already has fabulously out-performed his. A 4,000-yard passing, Pro Bowl season ended by winning the second Super Bowl in the franchise’s 50-year history in his first season? That’s obviously worth more than the 18th-highest QB salary.
That’s why the TNT asked Schneider at the combine if Darnold has earned a new deal now, this offseason, as a reward for winning the Super Bowl.
“Sam signed a three-year deal,” Schneider said Tuesday, off the podium on the floor of the Indiana Convention Center.
Right. Does he merit a raise, a reward?
“He signed a THREE-year deal. There’s three years on that,” Schneider said. He has his precedents, and all.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Devon Witherspoon new deals?
That leaves NFL offensive player of the year Jaxon Smith-Njigba and cornerback Devon Witherspoon, a Pro Bowl selection for the third time in his third NFL season. Both are poised for massive contract extensions this summer. Smith-Njigba turned 24 this month. Witherspoon is 25. This fall they will be entering the final seasons of rookie deals they’ve massively outplayed.
Schneider’s M.O. is to do such extensions in the days before or after the start of training camp. That’s in late July.
“It’s part of...it’s been part of our planning process,” the GM said of eventual new deals for JSN and Witherspoon. “So in the timing of it, I’m not sure.
“But, I mean, we definitely...those are two pretty good players.”
He chuckled. Smith-Njigba could command a close to a $200-million deal. That would be a Seahawks record, for any position. Cincinnati’s Ja’Marr Chase has the league’s richest contract for a wide receiver, at up to $161 million in total value. Chase is two years older than Smith-Njigba.
DeMarcus Lawrence retiring?
DeMarcus Lawrence was a stud. He was a large reason the Seahawks defense allowed the fewest points in the league, then dominated New England in the Super Bowl.
The wrecking defensive end made the Pro Bowl for the fifth time in his 12-year career. After 11, fruitless years with the Dallas Cowboys, he signed this time last year with Seattle. He believed this is where he could win the Super Bowl for the first time.
He did.
It follows that in the aftermath, espn.com’s Brady Henderson said on 710-AM radio recently people “in Lawrence’s camp” aren’t sure if Lawrence wants to return for the 2026 season or retire. That would be going out on top of the sport.
That’s news to Macdonald.
“I mean, anytime you’re in, you know, double-digit years, it’s one of those things you have to kind of factor in. ...(But) he hasn’t indicated anything else that he’s not going back,” Macdonald said of Lawrence.
The coach and maestro of Seattle’s top-ranked defense said the same is true of defensive tackle Jarran Reed. The locker-room leader just finished his 10th NFL year. He turns 34 during next season.
In fact, Macdonald said all veteran Seahawks under contract older than 30 have told their coach they plan on returning for next season. That includes wide receiver Cooper Kupp, defensive lineman Leonard Williams, kicker Jason Myers and punter Michael Dickson.
“For right now, everybody hasn’t told us that they’re not coming back, let’s put it that way,” Macdonald said Wednesday in Indiana. “Those things can change. “But, yeah, I mean, hasn’t indicated otherwise.”
A devalued Seahawks draft
When Schneider traded two third-day draft choices to the New Orleans Saints in early November to acquire kick returner and wide receiver Rasheed Shaheed, some observers fretted Seattle was down to just four picks in the 2026 draft. That would be the second-fewest Schneider’s had in his 17 drafts with the team. Seattle had three in 2020, the COVID year the Seahawks punted the draft.
Nobody is worried about having only four picks now. Not after Shaheed was a MVP of the playoff run with huge returns for touchdowns in pivotal wins over the Rams and 49ers, and the Seahawks won the Super Bowl.
When asked how having only four picks in this draft, Seattle’s GM said that is by design.
“You have to evaluate every class. And so we evaluated this class as, ‘OK, ‘25 is going to be stronger than ‘26, and ‘27 may be stronger,’” Schneider said.
“It’s not the individual players. It’s kind of the collective like the whole group.
“So that’s why you saw us make some of the decisions we made.’’
Coaching staff staying (mostly) intact
Those fears of Klint Kubiak stealing half the Seahawks coaching staff away to Las Vegas after the Raiders named Seattle’s offensive coordinator their new head coach the day after the Super Bowl? Unfounded.
Macdonald confirmed only the assistants already reported to be following Kubiak to the Raiders are leaving. Those are quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko, to be Las Vegas’ offensive coordinator, and run-game coordinator Rick Dennison as the Raiders’ new offensive line coach.
The most important assistant the Seahawks are retaining for 2026: Transformative line coach John “I’m a Seahawk, dammit!” Benton.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless something changes at this point,” Macdonald said.
“Everybody else, like, everybody that’s left, everybody everyone knows about.”
rMacdonald said he’s still deciding what titles returning offensive assistants Justin Outten and Jake Peetz plus newly hired offensive assistant Daniel Stern from Baltimore will have on his latest Seahawks staff. An announcement of those titles for Outten, Peetz, Stern and Macdonald’s entire coaching staff for 2026 could come this week.
Macdonald will be in Hawaii, on vacation with his wife Stephanie and their toddler son, Jack.
This story was originally published March 1, 2026 at 3:00 AM with the headline "5 things learned on 2026 Seahawks at NFL combine, including Sam Darnold’s deal."
