Why Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba can rebound, evolve in Week 14

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold has shown flashes of brilliance this season, led by his ability to complete passes over the middle of the field. But in Weeks 12 and 13, he’s struggled in these areas- and the offense has become less formidable as a result.

His passing charts, courtesy of NFL Next Gen Stats, show him trending away from his early season bread-and-butter. In Week 13 vs the Minnesota Vikings, he went just 1-for-2 between the hashes. In Week 12 at the Tennessee Titans, he attempted a single throw on the hash, which went incomplete. After his Week 11 dud vs the Los Angeles Rams, in which he threw four interceptions, he seems to have shied away from making these throws.

Klint Kubiak’s 2025 offense has been built on a principle I call “horizontality”- stretching defenses sideline-to-sideline before going vertical. This opened up the Jaxon Smith-Njigba deep balls of recent, which put them up early on the Titans, the Jaguars, and the Cardinals. But as Darnold’s thrown increasingly to the outside in recent weeks, the offense has been easier to counter.

The Vikings taught the Seahawks next opponent just how to stop their offensive efficiency. They blitzed at a 60% rate on Sunday, the 7th most of any team in a single game this season. They blitz more than any other team in the league, and the Seahawks next opponent, the Atlanta Falcons, ranks second. They’ll be eager to follow suit at home after seeing Minnesota’s success this past week. But the key to ever-evolving offense is that there’s always an answer.

As linebackers load the front, the middle of the field opens up. Seattle can throw where they would've been covering and force them to back up as they did in Week 2 visiting the Pittsburgh Steelers. The horizontality was on full display as Darnold dotted passes all around the hashes, putting their linebackers in a bind (here's his passing chart for that game). Their defense was stretched thin and Seattle got their first win of the season.

As the Seahawks go on the road against another blitz-happy opponent, there’s a golden opportunity for Klint Kubiak to evolve. While Atlanta blitzes and grabs sacks at an elite level, they leave the intermediate passing game open at an alarming rate. They rank dead last in both completion percentage and yards per attempt in these regards. The Seahawks have the shiftiest route-runner in the NFL in Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and he can get back to feasting in his favorite areas in Week 14.

This article originally appeared on Seahawks Wire: Why Sam Darnold & Jaxon Smith-Njigba can rebound in Week 14