Sam Darnold Injury Update: When Will Seahawks QB Return?

Sam Darnold's second season with the Seattle Seahawks didn't get off to the best of starts against the New England Patriots.

Darnold was injured just five plays in, and Drew Lock led the rest of the way as Seattle battled to a 13-10 win.

Some thought Darnold, who was ruled out with a hip injury, might have suffered a fracture of some sort, but that was ruled out.

Then, as news filtered through, the Seahawks received positive news that Darnold won't miss much time, though he's highly unlikely to play in Week 2 against the Arizona Cardinals.

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Now we have another update on Sam from NFL reporter Ian Rapoport on NFL GameDay.

"My understanding is Sam Darnold is going be out next week, and then we'll see," Rapoport said. "Probably a couple of games was the description that was given to me. We've been calling it a hip injury, my understanding is that it is actually a glute injury, so Darnold hurt his butt. The muscular injury not considered to be major."

So that is a big win for the Seahawks.

One, Darnold avoided a serious injury, as we know Dallas Cowboys running back Malik Davis is out for the season with a hip injury.

And two, he isn't likely to miss significant time.

Even if he did, Seattle has all the confidence in the world with Lock at quarterback, as he stepped in against the Patriots and performed well.

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So now all attention will be on when Darnold can return, which, going by Rapoport's comments, could be as early as Week 3 against the Washington Commanders.

At the time of the injury, the initial thought was that it could be bad, but now we know that all Sam did was "hurt his butt."

After a stirring Week 1 win, Mike Macdonald's Seahawks will be raring to go against the Cardinals and then Washington, two teams you would expect them to beat.

If they can do that without Darnold, it sets up Seattle well for the season, as we know how many teams fall off when their starting quarterback is out due to injury.

Luckily, Darnold won't be out too long.