Sam Darnold is one win away from capping off one of the most incredible runs in NFL history. He won 14 games with the Vikings last season and has now won 16 games and taken the Seahawks to a Super Bowl a year later.
On Sunday evening, on the biggest stage of his career, Darnold threw for 346 yards and three touchdowns in the NFC championship game. Any doubters must have, at this point, been silenced.
While Darnold didn't have any messages for the haters after the game, ESPN's Dan Orlovsky was all fired up to defend the quarterback on Monday morning. First he appeared on Get Up and called out the "loud-mouths" who said Darnold couldn't do exactly what he did.
"[Sam] Darnold played and won in the way that all the loud-mouths said he couldn't. ... It was the redemption story of Sam Darnold." 👀
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) January 26, 2026
—@danorlovsky7 on Sam Darnold and the Seahawks defeating the Rams pic.twitter.com/WpK1zhwVuS
"Darnold played and won in a way that all the loud-mouths said he couldn't," said Orlovsky. "All the people that were the haters of Sam Darnold that said well, 'He'll panic. He's not poised. He makes too many mistakes. He's gonna throw a ton of interceptions. He played in the way that he was poised. He didn't throw the ball away. He made great decisions in the right moments and he was as clutch as he's ever been."
"All the times that everyone said Sam Darnold isn't all that, you were wrong," Orlovsky emphasized.
A short time later Orlovsky was on First Take with Stephen A. Smith. This time Orlovsky brought receipts as the show played a compilation of Smith being a hater.
Smith, forever true to who he is, explained that he was not actually wrong about anything.
.@danorlovsky7 rolled a montage of @stephenasmith and his Sam Darnold doubt 😅
— First Take (@FirstTake) January 26, 2026
Does Darnold still have doubters? pic.twitter.com/L3LT4ov7cD
"First of all, it's shout out to me," said Smith. "I'm gonna tell you why. Because if I didn't want the production crew to show those clips, they wouldn't have shown it. See, I allowed that to happen. That's number one. I don't mind eating my words. I want to say to you, Dan Orlovsky. I want to say to Sam Darnold, congratulations. You damn sure proved me wrong. Phoenomenial performance on the part of Sam Darnold. He shut me up, but I wasn't wrong. I said, look, I got to see it to believe it. Dammit, he showed me yesterday. You act like I didn't have cause to believe what I believed. Did you think I was going to come on this airwaves today and say i was wrong about what I said about Sam Darnold?"
So he was wrong, but also not wrong. And he was silenced, but also remained quite loud. The perfect Stephen A. Smith concession speech really. Hopefully, Orlovsky enjoyed it.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dan Orlovsky Rips ‘Loud-Mouths’ Who Criticized Sam Darnold, Calls Out Stephen A. Smith.
