The Seahawks played an excellent game of football against the Rams. They had 165 more yards, 14 more first downs and they dominated time of possession with over 15 minutes more of the football than LA.

They should’ve won the game and be leading the NFC West tonight.

But they aren’t — because the quarterback threw four interceptions on a day that will have Sam Darnold sceptics reciting their view that this is who he really is.

The Seahawks comfortably lead the league in giveaways and it’s threatening to undermine a lot of progress. They are turning the ball over far too much — a problem that existed before today.

Some of the turnovers have been fluky. Not in LA. This is one to be owned by Darnold. He made bad decisions and it was costly.

The narrative on the Seahawks is now going to be ‘great defense, really good team — but I’m not sure about the quarterback’. Get ready for that. And you have to say, it’s not totally unjustified when you’ve just had a four-pick game. The onus is on Darnold to bounce back, retain the explosive element of Seattle’s passing game and stop turning the ball over. That’s easier said than done.

Anyone who’s been looking for that ‘moment he turns back into a pumpkin’ game has found their ammunition today. Even at USC, where he played well enough to become the third overall pick, he threw 22 interceptions in two seasons as a starter. This is his third such game in his career where he’s had four interceptions and no touchdowns. The other two came with the Jets, including the contest against New England where he was infamously recorded admitting he was seeing ghosts.

Yet Peyton Manning had five games in his career with four interceptions, plus one occasion where he threw six. The key is how you handle it. All eyes will now be on how Darnold responds.

If he deals with it in the right way, there’s nothing to worry about. The defense showed today it’s the real deal. They didn’t rely on sacks from one star player or big turnovers through error. They stymied Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford and limited them as a complete unit, working in unison. It was incredibly impressive and deserved a win at the end.

They needed their offense, or more specifically the quarterback, to finish the job.

I do wonder whether this could negatively impact Seattle’s play-calling and aggression going forward. Being so explosive has been a huge factor. Do they become more conservative now to try and limit the turnovers? I’m not sure that’d be a good idea. Yet the defense is playing well enough that a game-plan akin to Iowa in the BIG-10 might’ve provided a victory today.

The other deflating thing is it feels like we’re still waiting for a signature win. The Seahawks have rolled over some bad teams this season and beaten some average ones. Their three losses have come in their most important contests — the 49ers, Buccs and Rams.

I believe Mike Macdonald’s record against NFC teams with a winning record is 1-7. It’s not something I think anyone needs to overreact to — but clearly they are not winning the games that really matter. That has to change to believe in the true contending status of this team.

An important thing to note is the status of Grey Zabel. If his knee injury is serious it will be a huge blow. Not because he’s playing lights-out football. Far from it. The closer you look at his play you do see typical rookie errors and things to clean up. Yet he was competent and solid. I’m not convinced his replacement will be.

I’ll end on a positive. The Rams’ punter, Ethan Evans, produced the closest thing you’ll ever see to a ‘game-winning punt’ at the end. If that goes for a touchback, it’s nowhere near as difficult for the Seahawks to get into solid field goal range and they ended up having to eat time just to get off their own goal-line to start-off the final drive.

That they went from their own one-yard-line to where they did, giving Jason Myers even a sniff of winning the game, is a credit to the offense and Darnold.

If they’d have won it would’ve been one of the craziest and most satisfying victories in a long time. Instead it’s extremely frustrating, to the point you want to fast-forward straight to the rematch in week 16.

I hope this was just a really bad day at the office for Darnold. The problem is, whether you like it or not, we’re going to be wondering if this’ll happen again when the next big game comes around.