Sam Darnold says the Seahawks are focused on one clear issue before Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs: consistency. After six games of uneven production, the quarterback wants the offense to string together better drives and clean up the moments that have kept it from clicking on a regular basis.
The Seahawks practiced at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center on Thursday, October 22, 2026, with the Chiefs game looming as an early test of how much progress the offense has made. The review has not been rushed. Over the long weekend, Brian Fleury said coaches went back through film from the first six games and evaluated the offense at every level.
Darnold said the message inside the building has been simple. “There are some things that we have to get better at and we've addressed those things,” he said, adding that the biggest issue is “consistency day in and day out.”
That is the kind of message teams often give when the performances are close enough to suggest better football is there, but not yet stable enough to trust. Darnold also pointed to the need to sustain drives, saying the Seahawks need “six, seven, eight plays” together rather than stalling on a key third down after building momentum.
The Seahawks want cleaner drives, not just flashes
Darnold’s point was reinforced by Brian Fleury, who said the coaching staff had spent a lot of hours reviewing the film from the first six games. The goal, he said, was to identify what the Seahawks are doing well and where they can “lean into and focus on moving forward.”
That kind of review suggests this is not about a single fix. It is about improving the rhythm of the offense, both schematically and at the position level, so the unit can avoid the stop-start pattern that has defined too many stretches.
There is also a sense that this is not unfamiliar territory for the Seahawks. Ernest Jones IV said the group has seen Darnold respond to adversity before, pointing to past stretches in which he has been able to battle back after things have not gone smoothly.
“This is nothing new for us,” Jones said. “We’ve been in this situation before.” He added that the group around Darnold is made up of “fighters,” and insisted the story will look different once the team turns things around.
Why the Chiefs game matters now
The timing makes Sunday important. The Chiefs bring a quality defense and a clear chance for the Seahawks to show whether the recent work has actually produced a cleaner, more dependable offense. Darnold said the team has had time to look at itself and at the Chiefs, and that the next step is to prepare well and “go out there so we can play decisively.”
Mike Macdonald has also been positive about his quarterback’s approach. “Sam’s been great,” he said on Monday, October 21, 2026, noting that Darnold has been trying to be part of the conversations about where the offense can go.
That is an encouraging sign for a team trying to solve a consistency problem before a nationally visible game. The Seahawks are not short on belief. What they need now is for the offense to show that the work on the practice field can turn into sustained production when the game tightens up.
Last season offered a reminder of how quickly the picture can change. In Week 11, Darnold threw four interceptions against the Los Angeles Rams. The next 10 games, including the playoffs, the Seahawks won all 10 and finished with a Super Bowl title. That is the version of the Seahawks they will want to rediscover now: steady, resilient and far less willing to let one bad sequence define the afternoon.
