Between Super Bowl arrivals, it was a standard “business trip.”
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In traffic, Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold headed to a bus. Offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak moved on, joining the team’s coaching staff and travel staff. Soon, their company’s split will become more permanent, and Kubiak is expected to reach an agreement to be the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders shortly after the Super Bowl. For the Seattle faithful, this was the bittersweet note in the air Sunday, whether they were hanging around San Francisco (where the NFL is preparing for a multitude of game-related events) or 40 miles south in San Jose, trying to catch a glimpse of the Seahawks’ airport landing.
This Seattle roster and personnel are on the verge of their ultimate goal, and the band is already heading toward a breakup of sorts. This happens, of course. Kubiak and Darnold certainly aren’t the first coordinator-quarterback duo to head into a Super Bowl knowing divergent paths lie ahead. We’ve seen it happen four times in the last eight Super Bowls: three times with the Philadelphia Eagles, with Frank Reich (LII), Shane Steichen (LVII) and Kellen Moore (LIX), and once with the Los Angeles Rams and Kevin O’Connell (LVI).
Kubiak is expected to go five for nine after Sunday. And when he leaves, Darnold will enter the 2026 season with his eighth… eighth – different offensive coordinator in nine NFL seasons. If there was ever additional motivation for this Super Bowl appearance to count for a franchise, it’s the mystery of how Kubiak’s departure could affect the franchise and its quarterback.
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Yes, Darnold has certainly done enough to earn the belief that he can maintain his current level of play through another coordinator transition. But that doesn’t change the risk involved. The departures of Reich, Steichen and Moore had an impact on the Eagles’ offenses the following season, and it wasn’t a positive one. And while the Rams’ offensive collapse after the Super Bowl had as much to do with injuries as it did the loss of O’Connell, his departure had a short-term effect on head coach Sean McVay.
And let’s not forget, it’s Darnold who has pointed to Kubiak multiple times throughout this journey as a factor in his decisions or success. Going back to his signing in free agency, when he related that his comfort level in signing with Seattle was due to having worked with Kubiak during Darnold’s 2023 season with the San Francisco 49ers. Darnold was a substitute for the 49ers team and Kubiak was the passing game coordinator.
“(Working in a family scheme) was definitely one of the things I took into account when signing here,” Darnold said in March. “And again, just being able to work with Klint and having talked a lot with Klint in San Francisco about what we liked and what we didn’t like. We have a lot in common when it comes to football.”
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That’s not a feeling at all. And it’s not instantly created out of thin air with Kubiak’s replacement, even if it’s an internal candidate being promoted on staff. There’s still a rhythm that comes with continuity between a quarterback and the play-caller. Darnold alluded to that in June during organized team activities, when he talked about having to learn new systems throughout his career and finding an adjustment with each new play-caller.
“I think at the end of the day a lot of teams do similar things but they just call them different names,” Darnold said last summer. “That’s the part you have to learn: learn what Klint calls it and what we call it in general, and learn just the terminology and everything that comes with that.”
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There are adjustments and adjustments. Sometimes it works with an internal hire. Other times, the adjustment fails. The Eagles have been a clear example after their last two appearances in the Super Bowl. After Steichen left following the 2022 season, quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson was promoted to offensive coordinator. It turned out that he wasn’t a good fit, and Johnson was fired after a season in which the Eagles’ offense regressed. History repeated itself for the Eagles this season, when passing game coordinator Kevin Patullo took over as offensive coordinator following Moore’s departure to New Orleans, only to see the offense again falter and lead to Patullo’s firing after one season.
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Along the way, Jalen Hurts’ work has suffered setbacks. The question for the Seahawk is whether they can avoid a similar fate with Darnold, whose last three offensive play-callers have been Kubiak, O’Connell with the Minnesota Vikings and then Kyle Shanahan during his time as the 49ers’ backup. That’s a tough act to follow for anyone sliding into Kubiak’s seat.
None of this is to say that Kubiak was perfect. Seattle’s offense didn’t really hit its stride until late in the season, at least in part due to inconsistency in the running game early on. And Darnold has had to carry the load only intermittently along the way, thanks in large part to Seattle’s defense. But he’s also been resilient, bouncing back from two regular-season games against the Rams in which he threw six interceptions to a victory in the NFC title game last month that was easily the best high-pressure game of his entire eight-year career.
It was also one of Kubiak’s most magnificently called games. He balanced himself with the run early, then gradually opened up to higher-risk throws down the field that resulted in pivotal plays, and then put the ball in Darnold’s hands late in the fourth quarter, with a couple of must-have first downs on play-action passes, rather than trying to ruin the clock by simply running the ball. It’s a rhythm and trust between the quarterback and the play-caller that dates back to the fourth quarter and overtime of Week 16 against the Rams. And it could continue until Sunday against the New England Patriots.
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Now that’s all expected to come to an end, with Kubiak gone and the Seahawks’ top priority suddenly being yet another offensive coordinator for Darnold. The bittersweet business trip began Sunday. Where they take the Seahawks in 2026 is anyone’s guess.