10. Sam Darnold, Seattle Seahawks
Sam Darnold plays on Sunday Night Football
Sam Darnold plays on Sunday Night Football against the Washington Commanders, and this should be a Seattle Seahawks’ victory. Darnold has been stellar this season and is building off of the insane year he had with the Minnesota Vikings back in 2024.
Darnold bounced around on a few teams before arriving in Minnesota last year. It just goes to show you how much coaching and being in the right situation matters for quarterbacks. Darnold played 28 years old back in June and might have a solid 5-7 year prime ahead of him.
Furthermore, the Seattle Seahawks are one of the more well-rounded teams in the NFL, but they do need to add a guard at the NFL trade deadline to help Darnold out. Heading into SNF, Darnold has thrown 12 touchdown passes against four interceptions and has a stellar 109.2 passer rating.
He’s able to make every single throw on the field and has been outstanding for a hear and a half now. Darnold continues to take residence near the top of our quarterback power rankings.
9. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs
This was about as bad as Patrick Mahomes will ever play - he completed less than 50% of his passes in a pretty ugly Chiefs’ loss to the Buffalo Bills, and it’s yet another installment of KC losing to Buffalo in the regular season.
Some have already wondered if we can just fast-forward to the inevitable playoff matchup between the Bills and Chiefs, but KC just doesn’t feel all that special this year, and they are now third place in the AFC West.
The LA Chargers are 6-3, and the Denver Broncos are 7-2, so the Chiefs are now two entire games behind the Broncos with a huge Week 11 showdown coming up in Week 11. Mahomes has largely been very good this year, but this was a bad performance in a high-leverage situation.
What might end up happening is the Chiefs get into the playoffs and make yet another deep playoff run, but KC just isn’t really showing that kind of pizzazz that we’ve seen from them in previous seasons.