Sam Darnold has been here before. In a literal sense, he has been at a podium in June, explaining how a new offensive coordinator's system fits him. This is the sixth play-caller he has worked with since entering the league in 2018. But this time, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback insists, the new look is not really new.
Darnold spoke Wednesday after the team's latest OTA practice and made a point that matters for a franchise trying to build on a season that saw him throw for 4,048 yards and 25 touchdowns. The offense Brian Fleury is installing does not require the kind of start-over that Darnold endured in previous stops. The carryover is real.
"When you've been in as many systems as I have, you learn to identify what translates and what doesn't pretty fast," Darnold told reporters. "This one, there's a lot that feels familiar. The concepts, the verbiage, the way Brian thinks about attacking defenses. It is not a complete reset."
It is a line that might read as standard June optimism. But given the Seahawks' situation, it carries weight.
The OC Carousel, Eight Years Running
Darnold has run out of room for new playbooks. His NFL quarterbacking life reads like a tour of offensive philosophy: Adam Gase (New York Jets, 2018-2019), Matt Rhule and then an in-season shift (Carolina, 2020-2021), Kevin O'Connell (Minnesota, 2022-2023), Shane Waldron (Seattle, 2024), and Ryan Grubb (Seattle, 2025). Now Fleury steps in after Grubb departed following the 2025 season.
Every one of those stops meant a new language. A new protection scheme. A new route tree hierarchy. The common wisdom in NFL circles is that a quarterback and coordinator need about a full season--training camp, preseason reps, in-game adjustments, then an offseason to process it all--before the offense truly clicks. Darnold has rarely had that luxury.
The Seahawks are trying to break that pattern. Head coach Mike Macdonald hired Fleury specifically because of schematic continuity. The system Fleury is building draws from the same tree as Grubb's, which itself had roots in the Mike Shanahan/Kyle Shanahan lineage Darnold ran in Minnesota. That three-step connection means Darnold is not learning a new alphabet. He is tweaking the grammar.
That, historically, has not been the norm for quarterbacks on their third team. For context of how rare continuity has been in Seattle's recent history: Russell Wilson had just two different offensive coordinators in his decade with the team. In the three seasons since Wilson left, the Seahawks will have fielded four different play-callers by the time the 2026 season kicks off.
Fleury is the young name on everyone's radar. He worked under Macdonald in Baltimore before following him to Seattle, and Macdonald has been clear about wanting stability. When asked about the offensive coordinator situation in his June 2 press conference, Macdonald said, "There's a newness and a freshness to it that really our team needs right now." That is a fine line to walk--new energy without new confusion--and it hinges on Darnold's ability to absorb what Fleury is teaching quickly.
What Carryover Actually Looks Like
What does "carryover" mean in practice? It shows up in the meeting room first. Darnold does not need to learn a new play-call taxonomy from scratch. The run-pass options are structured similarly. The route combinations off play-action mirror what the offense has been doing. The protection rules, which often trip up veteran quarterbacks transitioning to a new scheme, are more familiar than foreign.
It also shows up in the huddle. "Guys are confident," Darnold said. "They're not thinking as much. That's the biggest difference when you're in Year 2 with a core offense. Even though the coordinator changed, the players who were here last year already know the foundation. You build on top of it instead of digging a new hole."
That is a subtle but significant distinction. In the past, Darnold has often been the guy learning alongside new teammates learning the same system. Here, the receiving corps--Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Cooper Kupp, and the rest--already has a season of experience in the scheme's core principles. Smith-Njigba caught 119 passes for 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2025. He is not going through a 12-week orientation. The same applies to tight end AJ Barner, who emerged as a 52-catch weapon.
For Darnold, that means he can focus on the chemistry part of the job rather than the instruction manual.
The Historical Precedent for a QB With His Sixth OC
There is not much positive history to point at for quarterbacks on their sixth coordinator by Year 8 in the league. The list of QBs who have cycled through coordinators at that rate and still produced a high-level season is short. Most end up as journeymen backups. But Darnold's 2025 season--25 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, a full 17-game starter--bucked the trend. He played with confidence that had not been visible since his promising 2022 run in Minnesota.
The question is whether Fleury can keep that trend moving upward. Darnold has the arm talent and the mobility to punish defenses. He has the receiving weapons. He has a system that is not foreign. What he needs most is time in one seat.
That is the rarest commodity in modern NFL quarterbacking. The league's best signal-callers--Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow--all work with the same play-caller year after year. Their offensive coordinators leave for head-coaching jobs, but the system stays. That is what Seattle is trying to replicate for Darnold.
Whether it works will depend on how quickly the nuances of Fleury's playbook replace what Grubb had in place. But Darnold's comfort level right now, in June, is a good sign. He has been through enough June optimism to know the difference between a soft sell and a real fit.
Six coordinators in eight years. The Seahawks are betting that number stops climbing.