{"id":461916,"date":"2026-02-08T14:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T14:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/461916\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T14:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T14:57:09","slug":"seahawks-vs-patriots-pits-maye-darnold-for-nfl-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/461916\/","title":{"rendered":"Seahawks vs. Patriots pits Maye, Darnold for NFL title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold will be playing on his sport\u2019s biggest stage \u2014 and he might have basketball to thank for it?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold.\u00a0Nick Wass \/ AP<\/p>\n

In an age of sports specialization<\/a>, with elite young athletes<\/a> being increasingly pushed<\/a> to concentrate on just one craft, Darnold said putting down the pigskin in favor of the roundball every winter played a key role in his development.<\/p>\n

His tape as a basketball player at San Clemente High School<\/a>, in California, helped draw interest from USC football recruiters, who were impressed with his overall athleticism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like playing multiple sports was huge for me,\u201d the 6-foot-3 Darnold told reporters at the team’s headquarters in San Jose. \u201cI loved playing basketball. I always say basketball was kind of my first love, especially being close to L.A. and (late basketball legend) Kobe (Bryant) <\/a>being a huge inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cSo yeah, I love basketball and I\u2019m just grateful that USC saw that film and was able to offer me (a scholarship) for football.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold will be playing on his sport\u2019s biggest stage \u2014 and he might have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-461916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}