Before free agency even opened in March, the Seattle Seahawks were linked to Sam Darnold as a potential destination, with the rumors growing even louder after the Seahawks agreed to trade veteran quarterback Geno Smith to the Las Vegas Raiders.
It did not take long for the rumors to become reality, with Darnold signing with Seattle and taking over as the presumed starter for 2025, providing fans and observers alike with an indirect answer to the question about whether the Seahawks were interested in seeing what they have in Sam Howell. In short, the team was more prepared to give out one of the largest contracts in franchise history rather than roll with the former starter for the Washington Commanders they had acquired by trade just a year ago.
With that in mind, the Hawks are set to roll into 2025, and beyond, with Darnold under center so it’s time to take an in depth look at the contract to which the two sides agreed, and to look beyond just the numbers.
Jumping right into the fray, a big point of contention has been the idea that the Seahawks have an out after the first year of the Darnold contract, as Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk reported earlier in the offseason. Initial reports stated Seattle could get out of the contract after 2025 with minimal dead money, but according to more recent reporting that is incorrect.
Specifically, while Seattle tends to structure their contracts in such a way that the second year money vests from injury guarantees into full guarantees the Friday after the Super Bowl, the Darnold contract is different. In Darnold’s contract his second year guarantees vested on the fifth day of the league year in 2025, which was the 19th of last month. That means Darnold now has $17.5M of fully guaranteed money in 2026, which materially changes the equation.
To get right to the point, Darnold will have a $13.4M cap hit in 2025, and with $17.5M of fully guaranteed money in 2026 it would cost the Seahawks $40.6M in dead money in 2026 to move on from Darnold after the 2025 season. So, if anyone was wondering why it took so long for the details of the deal to work their way out, it appears a big part of the reason may have been that the Seattle front office changed their contract structure and let Darnold’s 2026 guarantees vest a year early. Putting that $40.6M dead cap on top of Darnold’s $13.4M cap means that if the Seahawks move on after one year, they will have paid Darnold $54M to be so bad that they opted to go find a new quarterback rather than let him lead the team again in 2026.
Putting this all together, the initial reports that Darnold’s deal had an easy out after one year were off base, and in reality the contract is effectively:
One year, $54M ($13.4M 2025 cap hit plus $40.6M 2026 dead money)
Two years, $66.5M ($13.4M 2025 cap hit plus $33.9M 2026 cap hit plus $19.2M 2027 dead money)
Three years, $105M ($13.4M 2025 cap hit plus $33.9M 2026 cap hit plus $44.9M 2027 cap hit plus $12.8M 2028 dead money)
Putting a big bow tie on everything, it’s time for commenters to stop saying the Seahawks can easily get out of the Darnold deal after one year. They cannot. They can get out of the contract after one year if they want, but it will cost them the largest dead money hit in franchise history. In fact, the $40.6M dead money hit that would be incurred by moving on from Darnold after 2025 would be larger than the combined dead money hits after trading Geno Smith ($13.5M) and Russell Wilson ($26M).
