The Seattle Seahawks are the fifth team that Sam Darnold has played for, and he is taking them to the Super Bowl. Given how widely regarded as a total bust Darnold used to be, this is truly a Drake “started from the bottom, now we here” kind of moment. And that’s what makes the Sam Darnold meme funnier than ever.
Make that the mono Sam Darnold meme.
The No. 3 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, out of USC, Darnold began his NFL career with the New York Jets, so that was his first setback. Other than maybe the Cleveland Browns, there is no worse organization to go to than the Jets.
Then came Darnold’s mononucleosis diagnosis that turned into a hilarious meme. It’s funny because Darnold was ok, saying he only felt sick for about three or four days. Mono, sometimes called “the kissing disease” or Epstein-Barr virus, is not fatal, but in some cases, it can be serious due to the enlarged spleen that comes with it.
When you have an enlarged spleen, you should avoid all hard contact, like you know, playing a professional contact sport for a living. Darnold missed three weeks, but the ESPN Monday Night Football graphic, from 2019, had him listed as “out indefinitely.”
More importantly is the Darnold finger point and aggressive, intimidating facial gesture. That obviously doesn’t go with being sidelined indefinitely due to mononucleosis, but someone on ESPN’s graphics team thought this was a good idea anyway.
And with that, Sam Darnold meme was born.
And a couple of seasons after that joke circulated on “the interwebs” or “the internets,” Darnold turned his career around.
He had a decent spell, part of the time, in Carolina, before producing a dominant season in Minnesota. Then he moved to Seattle, where he leveled up again.
Former Seahawks fullback Michael Robinson said it coming too.
“Sam Darnold has been a great treat,” Robinson said in an exclusive with RG.org. “Being around him this summer, he got some s*** with him, man. I’m saying that in a good way, l thought he was a chump at first.
“I thought he was from afar, I didn’t know him, I thought he was the guy from the Jets, seeing ghosts and all that stuff. Being around him and seeing him play, he takes leadership, and he has something about him.
“He has some fighting, some moxie about him.”
Moxie is a great word; people should use it more often. It perfectly describes the Seahawks QB1; ditto for Sam Darnold meme.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network, RG.org and Ratings.org. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and the Washington Post.