Sam Darnold’s famous grandfather becomes part of the Super Bowl story originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Sam Darnold does not remember his grandfather. But Super Bowl season has a way of introducing people.
As the Seattle Seahawks head to the Super Bowl, all kinds of random stories are going to surface over the next couple of weeks.
That’s how the biggest annual sporting event in American sports works. Football still leads, but the next two weeks are fueled by detours, backstories, trivia, and random details that take on a life of their own.
One of those stories bubbled up this week courtesy of Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take, which resurfaced the legend of Dick Hammer, formally known as Richard Bernard Hammer.
Yes, that Dick Hammer.
Darnold's connection to an iconic figure
Hammer’s resume sounds exaggerated even by Super Bowl standards. He was an elite athlete who competed at the Olympic level in volleyball. He served as a firefighter. He worked as an actor. And somewhere along the way, he became one of the iconic Marlboro Men, a face tied to one of the most recognizable advertising campaigns in American history.
Sam Darnold's grandfather is a former Marlboro Man named Dick Hammer. pic.twitter.com/EhnFcnDrbT
— QBgami (@QBgami) January 22, 2026
He also happened to be the grandfather of Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold.
Darnold spoke about the family connection during a recent interview with KING 5 in Seattle, offering a mix of reflection and humor as he worked through a story he mostly knows secondhand.
“He passed away when I was two years old, so I didn’t really get to know him,” Darnold said. “But from what my mom tells me, we have very similar personalities. We attack everything that we do in a similar way.”
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What Darnold says about his famous grandfather?
According to Darnold, that comparison comes up often within the family, especially on his mother’s side.
“I feel like my family and her side of the family compares me to him a lot,” he said.
There is one area, however, where the similarities stop.
“I’ve never gotten the looks one, and I appreciate that,” Darnold said with a laugh. “He was a model and a Marlboro Man, all these things, and he was an actor. That’s a new one for me.”
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It is not exactly a standard quarterback backstory. Most players grow up hearing about old high school highlights or state playoff runs. Darnold is learning that his lineage includes Olympic competition, public service, and pop culture fame.
No, he is not about to trade the playbook for a cowboy hat. But the personality overlap resonates, even if the spotlight arrived in very different ways.
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And in late January and into February, when football becomes a two week deep dive into everything around the game, stories like this tend to surface.
Super Bowl season does not just magnify the players on the field. Sometimes, it dusts off the legends waiting quietly in the family tree.
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