If your summer sports head is spinning about the current state of the Seattle Mariners, perhaps it’d be better served focusing on “spin rate,” particularly as it relates to Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold.
The Seahawks are the subject of the latest season of HBO’s Hard Knocks, an inside look at training camp and how the team is preparing to defend its Super Bowl championship this season.
Episode 2 of the series premiered Tuesday night, and Darnold — in his second season with the team — was a highlight among an hour of TV that had many. The NFL was even compelled to post part of it on Instagram.
The Seahawks QB, along with the team’s passing game coordinator and one of Darnold’s primary receiving targets, all shared insight into why Darnold is an NFL leader when it comes to spin rate — and why it matters.
In a game increasingly loaded with analytics and Next Gen Stats, spin rate tracks the number of revolutions of the football while it’s in flight. The higher the rate, the tighter the spiral. The average NFL QB spin rate is 570. Darnold’s is “off the charts” at 639, according to Hard Knocks.
“From a young age, I’ve just been able to throw the football,” Darnold said on the show. “It was just something I always practiced. I’d be laying in bed with the football and just tossing it up to myself and trying to see how much I can spin it. And that’s just something I’ve always kind of been interested in and kind of a geek about.”
With a tight spiral on the football, the nose of the ball doesn’t tilt up or down, doesn’t wobble, and travels in a more effective manner to the receiver.
Veteran wide receiver Cooper Kupp knows there’s a science to throwing the ball, and he previously believed that spinning the ball too much made it harder to catch.
“I’ve now caught the ball from Sam for a year and a half, and now I’m not so sure,” Kupp said with a smile.
Darnold has been working on throwing a tight spiral since he was a kid tossing a football in the yard with his dad. Now when he generates a whip with his arm and the torque needed to throw the ball efficiently, he thinks about what’s ahead, particularly later in a season when weather can have a huge impact on the football.
HBO Sports is especially adept at capturing compelling footage on Hard Knocks. While Seattle, the Pacific Northwest and the Seahawks VMAC training facility on Lake Washington all make for a beautiful backdrop, it’s worth geeking out over Episode 2 for an extra-long shot of a Darnold pass in flight.
Set to a remix of the 1984 new wave hit “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by the English pop band Dead or Alive, the shot is totally on target.
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