The Champs Lost Their Starting QB 6 Plays Into the Season. The Backup Won Anyway.

Six plays into the defending Super Bowl champions' season, their starting quarterback was gone.

Sam Darnold went down on a third-down sack in Seattle's season opener against New England on Thursday night, grabbing at his hip as he got up. He was walked to the sideline medical tent, examined, sent to the locker room for further evaluation — and just before halftime, the Seahawks ruled him out for the rest of the game.

In came Drew Lock, cold, off the bench, in the season opener, for the team that had just won it all. He'd thrown exactly zero passes all night before Darnold's injury. By the final whistle, he'd thrown 22 of them, completing 16, for 187 yards and a touchdown — and Seattle had come back to beat New England, 13-10.

It wasn't clean. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. But it worked.

Darnold's hip injury leaves Seattle's season opener win with an asterisk hanging over it: how long is their starter actually out? The team hasn't put a firm timeline on his return, and hip injuries for a mobile quarterback are exactly the kind that can linger. Until there's clarity, Drew Lock — a career backup who's started games before but never carried a defending champion — is the Seahawks' quarterback.

For one night, that was enough. Whether it stays that way is the question hanging over Seattle's next few weeks.