Sam Darnold wins Super Bowl championship right where he revived his career with San Francisco

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Never before had Sam Darnold and his dad cried together.

“We don't do that,” Darnold said.

Then, on Sunday night, they let the tears flow — years' worth of them. As Super Bowl champions.

How fitting that Darnold delivered the capstone of his topsy-turvy NFL career in the very same place where he recently revived it, and then celebrated afterward with those who supported him the most through it all: father Michael, mom Chris and fiancee Katie.

“It's special. I shared a great moment with my parents and my fiancee Katie after the game and I think that's what kind of got me a little bit,” Seattle's quarterback said of his rare display of emotion.

“Me and my dad don't really cry very often and I told my dad, and my mom, I'm here because of their belief in me. They believed in me throughout my entire career and I think that's why I was able to believe in myself almost ad nauseam. Some people called me crazy throughout my career for believing in myself so much and having so much confidence but it was because of my parents.”

On the sideline of Levi's Stadium two seasons ago, Darnold patiently paid his dues behind Brock Purdy as San Francisco's backup quarterback and soaked up every ounce of knowledge he could from the coaches.

Back in the Bay Area on Sunday and beneath the bright lights, Darnold won a Super Bowl in his first year under center for the Seahawks — his fifth team in eight seasons.

Seattle captured the franchise's second Lombardi Trophy with a dominant 29-13 victory over the New England Patriots. Darnold even dressed in the same locker room Sunday where he once roamed with the 49ers, then took the field and completed 19 of 38 passes for 202 yards and a touchdown.

The 28-year-old Darnold now has an NFL title to his name, and that should be plenty to prove he belongs among the NFL's elite quarterbacks after a much-criticized beginning to his professional career.

He hung tough for the Seahawks this season through the ups and downs, time and again. Just as he had done so many times before while facing the doubters who largely considered him a bust.

“It's a unique story. I'm super blessed that that guy's my quarterback,” linebacker Ernest Jones IV said. “He just models what everybody on that team's been through. We've all been rejected, we've all not been respected, and he's just a guy at the helm for us.”

That forgettable, four-interception game in a 21-19 Week 11 road loss to the Rams in mid-November seems so long ago now. Darnold's teammates stuck by him, and he used that day as fuel to be better: beating the Rams the next two meetings, rallying his team to a 38-37 overtime victory Dec. 18 before a 31-27 triumph in the NFC championship game last month.

“Everyone in that locker room believes in me,” Darnold said. “They've had my back from the jump and I have everyone's back as well. That's just kind of how we roll as a team. The journey and everything that comes with it and being able to win a Super Bowl, it hasn't really sunk in, even just saying it out loud. It's an awesome moment that I was able to share tonight with a lot of my teammates and coaches.”

Darnold credited that time with San Francisco playing in coach Kyle Shanahan's offense while learning from Purdy as crucial to reviving his career, then he produced a breakout year with Minnesota last season before heading off to the Pacific Northwest.

Darnold started one game in 2023 for the 49ers and appeared in 10, throwing 46 total passes with 28 completions and a pair of touchdowns. He cherished the guidance he received from quarterbacks coach Brian Griese, an 11-year NFL veteran himself.

It has been quite a path for Darnold to find his footing in the pros after being drafted third overall by the New York Jets in the first round of the 2018 draft out of USC.

He had a 13-25 record and a 78.6 passer rating over his initial three seasons for the Jets — the second worst in the league among 43 quarterbacks with at least 15 starts from 2018-20.

“It's all about my journey, the reason I'm up here is because of my journey, because of the ups and downs, especially the downs that I went through early on in my career,” Darnold said. “I learned so much about myself, about football. It's funny how it works, I didn't play great football my first few years of my career and then I come here to San Francisco and I learn a ton.”

In Seattle, Darnold has thrived — still with some of those same San Francisco ties. Offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak directed the Niners' passing game in 2023.

It filled general manager John Schneider with joy that Darnold led the way for Seattle and so beautifully navigated the highs and lows of an NFL season.

“We're all rooting for people like that, right?” Schneider said in the Seahawks' cigar-smoke filled locker room. “He was the third pick of the draft for a reason. He's a resilient guy, and I think that's been a reflection of our team, too. ... He's a real person. He doesn't fake anything. He's like, ‘I am who I am, deal with it.’”

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold celebrates after a win over the New England Patriots in the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold (14) throws a pass under pressure from New England Patriots defensive tackle Christian Barmore (90) during the first half of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold throws a pass during the first half of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game against the New England Patriots, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold (14) throws a pass under pressure from New England Patriots defensive end Milton Williams (97) during the first half of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold throws a pass during the second half of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game against the New England Patriots, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold prepares to pass during the second half of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game against the New England Patriots, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Lindsey Vonn knows the Olympic downhill course better than anyone.

She’s won a record 12 World Cup races on the Olympia delle Tofane track — split evenly between six downhills and six super-Gs — and has a total of 20 podium results there, stretching back to her very first podium on the entire circuit in 2004.

So how did the 41-year-old American standout lose control just 12.5 seconds into her run and crash so spectacularly at the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Sunday?

Here’s what happened and why:

The highlight of the downhill course is the Tofana schuss, a narrow chute between two walls of Dolomite rock where the skiers accelerate to 80 mph (130 kph).

But the real key to the Olympia delle Tofane track comes above the schuss, where there’s a key right turn that includes an uphill stretch. That’s where Vonn went down.

“It’s incredibly reverse banked,” said Kristian Ghedina, the Cortina native and former racer who grew up in a home just below the finish line. “That’s where your speed for the rest of the course gets determined and if you don’t take the right trajectory it makes a huge difference because you end up going uphill.”

Vonn was fighting that reverse bank and trending slightly uphill when she got rocked into the air by a bump, causing her to clip the fourth gate with her right side.

That’s when the real disaster started to unfold.

Vonn tried to twist and regain her balance in mid-air but landed awkwardly with her skis perpendicular to the fall line, ensuring a brutal fall. She tumbled over, got bounced into the air again and landed on her neck area and slid down a ways before coming to a stop in the middle of the course, away from the safety netting but clearly in serious trouble.

Hours later, Vonn underwent surgery for a broken left leg and was in stable condition.

“It’s super flat after it so the goal is to be as close to that gate as possible and she really nailed the turn but she was too close to it so she got hooked into it," Norwegian skier Kajsa Vickhoff Lie said of the gate. “But that’s how it is with the Olympics, you really want to be on the limit and she was a little bit over the limit.”

While it’s always bumpy in that section, this year the final bump is “more of a kicker,” Lie noted, which is why Vonn got popped up suddenly into the air.

“I watched the video, and probably like anybody else, saw that she went through that panel, that uphill double, and for sure kicked her in the air and there was a pretty significant fall after that,” head U.S. ski coach Paul Kristofic told The Associated Press.

Women's race director Peter Gerdol said the section where Vonn lost control was “not really more different than other years.”

“This is the Cortina downhill and this year we’re talking about the Olympics,” he told AP. “It’s awarding Olympic medals so has to be somehow challenging.”

Had attention been paid to controlling the size of that bump?

“Not severely,” Gerdol said. “Because actually today, all the athletes went through quite easily. Lindsey made a mistake and it happens. It can happen in any section of the course. It happened there but it could have been in another.”

When she came to a stop, Vonn's skis were facing in opposite directions, still attached to her bindings. She then moved her left arm toward her body and was lying there alone and virtually immobile until help arrived after some tense moments. She received care for long minutes before she was airlifted away by helicopter.

The mandatory safety air bag inflated under her racing suit during the crash, supplier Dainese confirmed to the AP. The air bag, which is triggered by a complicated algorithm when racers lose control, may have softened her landing.

It was evident that the air bag had opened, because Vonn’s chest appeared puffed out when she was lying on the snow.

Marco Pastore, who works on the safety system for Dainese, said the air bag deflates after about 20 seconds, so that likely happened while Vonn was lying on the snow after her crash. Eventually, Dainese will try to retrieve a sort of “black box” sensor that could reveal data on the fall.

“She was wearing it when they took her away in the helicopter,” Pastore said. “So we haven’t gotten the data yet.”

AP Sports Writer Steve Douglas contributed to this report.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

United States' Lindsey Vonn is airlifted away after a crash during an alpine ski women's downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)