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Sam Darnold: "We All Have A Standard Of How We Want To Play" · Seahawks Press Pass

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: It's good to see all you guys, man. It's been
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: a while. No, you know, it's a great opportunity for us. Obviously,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: this is a really good football team coming in here
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: in New England. Really good defense, offense, good special teams, obviously, and,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: you know, really good coaching staff. So, you know, we
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: got our work cut out for us, but it's exciting, man.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Exciting to have football back and just ready to go.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: In terms of the improvising that's needed and not knowing
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: what to expect?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: You know, that presents its own challenges for sure. Being
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: able to, you know, see, you know, it's a similar defense, obviously,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: that we played our last game. But, you know, they
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: could have some different wrinkles. So we just got to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: be prepared on everything and or for everything. And then
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I think a big thing as well this game is
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: going to be communication on the sidelines. you know, how
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: we adjust to certain things that we see out there.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: You told us in Nashville that you feel like offensively
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: you guys still trying to figure out your identity.
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: Is that something that you don't really know until the
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: games begin? You don't really know what you do best?
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, you know, you kind of have an
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: idea of what you like to run and certain situations
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and down and distances, all those things. But, yeah, you
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: definitely get a better feel for it when you get
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: out there in the game.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: We've asked you about Brian Fleury kind of throughout since
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: he got here, but now that you're all the way
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: to week one, you've been working with him through a
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: whole camp. How do you feel like the offense is
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: coming together.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: With any coordinator? Fleury, I think just the communication that
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: he's had with not only myself, but our entire group.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Coming up here in front of the group and explaining
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: how we want to form our identity and that it's
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: never going to be set in stone. We're always evolving,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: but we have our are things that are non-negotiables. How
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: we play and the standard that is our offensive line,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: tight ends, running backs, receivers. We all have a standard
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: of how we want to play and we need to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: uphold that no matter what our scheme is. I think
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  Speaker 1: Brian's made himself very clear about that. That rings true
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: with what a lot of our philosophies are as players.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: You talked about in Nashville that you've been talking about
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: how to you know, spend some time with Flurry and
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: kind of build that relationship. Have you had a chance
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: to do that? Is that something you initiated? Is that
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: something he initiates? How does that work?
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it goes both ways, right? I mean, like for me,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: like just talking about some of the things that I
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: liked from last year or even years prior. So really
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: myself initiating the conversation of, you know, what we like
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: to do as an offense. Because, right, he's been in
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: San Francisco for so many years, which is great. You know,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the last couple of years when I wasn't there they've,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: done a ton of great things, which I've harped on
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to you guys of like how they do things in
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the run game and then some of the past game
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: things that they do. But just getting with him on
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: some of the things that we like as a group
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to do in the past game and in the run game.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: So it's a collaboration for sure. And at the end
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: of the day, like he has the final say on
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: what goes in and what doesn't.
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: You've described Brian as even keel in the past. I'm
• 3:10
  Speaker 6: curious how you've seen that kind of shown up over
• 3:12
  Speaker 6: the last few months, especially as the ramp up towards
• 3:15
  Speaker 6: his first game as offensive coordinator comes up.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting, right? Like as you play these preseason games,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the schedule on a week-to-week basis, it changes a lot.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And you're trying to get guys ready to play who
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: just got here two days ago. And so just the
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: amount of prep that we've gone through, like going through
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: a normal week, getting ready for this game against New England,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: it's more, you can tell it's like more of not
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: only his comfort zone, but all of us as players,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it's our comfort zone to be able to get our
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: routine right and get the feel of a normal week back.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes the preseason games can cause a little
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: stress and anxiety, especially for coaches as they try to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: get a plan together for some of those guys. So
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: for him, just feeling like every day we've come in
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: so far this week, he's been great just in terms
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: of the way that he's presenting, how clear the plan
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  Speaker 1: is so far. So yeah, it's been great.
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  Speaker 4: We've seen Brian call plays from up in the box
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  Speaker 4: and on the sideline in these preseason games. Do you
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: have a preference as a quarterback, whether you like to
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: have the play caller on the sideline with you or upstairs?
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  Speaker 4: And would that be something that he would maybe potentially
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: ask you about to try to make that decision?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I feel like all coordinators
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: have a different preference. It's whatever he likes. I don't
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  Speaker 1: have a preference personally. Like, if he sees it better upstairs,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: go upstairs, and then vice versa, right? If he sees
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: it better on the sideline, then, you know, it's great
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: having him down there as well.
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  Speaker 6: Leonard was saying yesterday he didn't feel like you've changed
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  Speaker 6: at all from, let's say, this time last year, despite,
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: you know, what you've kind of accomplished in the last year.
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  Speaker 6: And he said that's a really good thing that you've
• 4:53
  Speaker 6: kind of just, your approach to everything is the same.
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  Speaker 6: Is that kind of how you view it?
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope I'd not change. If I change, you
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: guys please tell me. No, but, you know, that's not
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: only for myself, but that's a lot of the guys
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: in the locker room. Like, I feel like we've, you know,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: we have a short-term memory in terms of what we've
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: done in the past. You know, it's about what we
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: can do today. to get ourselves ready for this game.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Even if you haven't changed, do you feel maybe better,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: more comfortable going into the season that you're in the
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: same place for two years, a lot of the same teammates,
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  Speaker 3: a lot of continuity and scheme, just there's a lot
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  Speaker 3: of carryover versus you've been bouncing around a lot.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think, you know, as humans, right. Naturally, like we
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: seek comfort a little bit. And I think for, for myself,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: like that was a, that was a big challenge this
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: off season was okay. It's the first time in a
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: few years that I've stayed in one place. Like how
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: can I kind of, you know, push myself a little
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: bit more and challenge myself. Obviously, you know, Fleury coming
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: in here with a couple of different wrinkles, like really
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: being able to study those things and study our, you know,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: go back to the basics, like studying formations, concepts, motions,
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  Speaker 1: all those things to, you know, to continue to sharpen
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: my sword. And so I think that's the biggest thing
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  Speaker 1: as a player, you know, and as a human in general,
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  Speaker 1: like you try to seek comfort sometimes. And I think
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: it's being able to find ways to continue to challenge yourself, which,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: you know, allows you to continue to grow.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: You're a golfer as well as a football player, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: the sequencing in a golf swing, I'm curious, you can
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: get out of sequence there, you find it on the range.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: When you have sequencing with your throwing motion, do you
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: find that that gets out of sync as well, and
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: do you have things to go back to to find it?
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question. I think one thing that
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: is a little bit different, and it's funny, I was
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: actually just talking to someone this morning about it, is golfers, especially,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: it's like a set. thing kickers also with JMI like
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it's a set routine and you have your own swing
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: like sometimes as a football player as a quarterback like
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: that sequencing might need to shorten up based on how
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: much time we have in the pocket or if my
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: feet if I have to move and my feet are
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  Speaker 1: facing this way and I have to make a throw
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  Speaker 1: this way like sometimes you got to rely on arm
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: strength or your agility to make a play and make
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: a throw so that would be the one difference but
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: you know sometimes just throwing it out there on the
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  Speaker 1: practice field like I want to make sure I'm sequenced
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  Speaker 1: up as much as I can be and make sure
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: that everything's flowing and that's the other thing too for
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  Speaker 1: doing it as long as I have been like if
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not sequenced up the right way and my my
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: hips and my shoulders and torso aren't aligned you know
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: in the right way then I'll feel it you know
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  Speaker 1: whether it's in my hips my shoulder so I know
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: right away if I'm not sequenced up and there's definitely
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: ways that I can fix that you know as I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: go on throughout the day and even the next couple days.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Did you know that you had a high spin rate
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: before Hard Knocks made a.
• 7:40
  Speaker 6: Big deal about it?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Just talking to someone about that as well. Yeah, I mean,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: it's a high-ish spin rate, but it's more of like
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the efficiency of it. You know, I think I've always
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: spun it. You know, it's funny. It's like people talk
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: about spin, like all that dude spins it when he
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: lets it go. And you can tell like he just
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: has a natural throwing motion. Like I've always kind of
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  Speaker 1: been able to do that since like high school and
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: middle school. And there's just a lot of things that
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: you try to tweak along the way, you know, throughout
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: your quarterback journey to continue to make yourself more efficient.
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  Speaker 1: I would say one thing, too, is in college, I
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: really relied on it. Like I relied on my arm
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  Speaker 1: to make a ton of throws. And I had a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: coach in college who said, hey, one day you're not
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: going to be able to do that. Like, you're going
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: to play a long time and you're not always going
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: to just be able to rely on your arm to
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: make throws. And so I think just hearing that and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: getting my body into as many throws as possible helps
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: with that mindset.
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  Speaker 6: Sam, the mental coach you turned to a couple years ago,
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  Speaker 6: why was it at that point in your career you
• 8:42
  Speaker 6: did that?
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  Speaker 1: Who got you there? Who or what?
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I had been kind of thinking about it.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: You know, and I had been trying. To be honest,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I'd tried. some different sports psychologists and it just didn't
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: really click. You know, with him, it just clicked. You know,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: he was, you know, he just explained like kind of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the science of why our brain goes to a certain
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: place or, you know, and a lot of it is
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: to just protect ourselves, like the fight or flight stuff.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: So I think for me, it was like understanding the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: science of why my brain is going to a certain place.
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  Speaker 1: And that allowed me to kind of just, I guess,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: use some hacks to be able to, you know, trick
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: myself into thinking that, you know, everything's fine.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Is that a daily maintenance thing, or is that some
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: second nature thing?
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: No, I've had to work on it, you know, still
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: working on it every day. And I'll get frustrated on
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: the field sometimes, especially in practice, you know, when we're
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: still trying to tweak things and figure it out. And
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I'm always trying to get better mentally.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: The Super Bowl, when you look back at that game, what.
• 9:44
  Speaker 6: Comes to mind?
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Oh, man.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think for me, it showed me what
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I needed to work on, I would say. Like, I
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: feel like I didn't make as many throws as I
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: should have. So, yeah.
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: Sam, when you go from training camp install types of
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: practices to in-season game planning, what functionally changes for you?
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: Does the goals you're trying to get out of a
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: practice alter a little bit? Like, how does that kind
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: of shift if it does at all?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I think it remains the same for the most part.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I think when you're trying to get certain looks from
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the defense and understand what those looks are, sometimes it
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: can feel curated. I think as a quarterback, I want
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: to try to not know what's coming from the defense
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: like I will in the game. Based on certain looks,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I might know, but I think with New England and
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of the scheme that they do, it can
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: be tough to tell. Just I guess urging the scout guys,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and they do a great job as well because our
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: defense does it, but just urging them to really not
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: show us exactly what they're going to be in pre-snap.
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: Did your Super Bowl ring survive being dropped?
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: It did. It's pretty durable.
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: What did you think of your portrayal overall on Hard Knocks?
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I didn't watch it, if I'm
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: being honest, but my parents loved it, so I'm sure
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: it was great.
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: Going back to the ring ceremony, did you think that, like, oh,
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: my God, what was going through your mind when that happened?
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Like, of course. Of course this would happen to me,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: you know, dropping the ring. But I will say, in
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: my defense, I guess this would be a good time
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to do it. I opened the box, and the ring
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: was already kind of falling out. It wasn't like I
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: made the ring fall out of the box. You know
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: what I mean? I just wanted to clear that up,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: you know, so. I had to say that because people
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: had been asking me the same exact question. Like, how
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: did the ring, how did you drop the ring? It's
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: so precious. And I was like, I just opened the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: box and it fell out and I couldn't grab it. Sam,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: what does running forward mean to you as you guys
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: try to move on.
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: From the Super Bowl, like you said?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, I mean, simply put, I would
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: say it's stacking days and just continuing. Like, today is
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: a great, you know, for us, we're thinking about it
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: like a Thursday. I know it's Sunday, but just thinking
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: about it like a Thursday. You know, what do I
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: need to attack today to get better on third downs
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and some of the looks that our defense is going
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: to give us and own our stuff as well, be
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: able to own our plays and our operation. So I
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: would say that's it, though. It's just taking it one
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: day at a time. Thanks, Sam.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Thanks, guys.