It’s been 11 years since the Seattle Seahawks were in the Super Bowl, the second of two straight appearances for the team, and the one that gave us this immortal media day performance from running back Marshawn Lynch.
The spectacle that is Super Bowl Media Day returns Monday night at the San Jose Convention Center, as all Seahawks and Patriots players and coaches will be available for an hour of unpredictable questions and untraditional media shouting over each other and probing for the next viral soundbite.
Super Bowl Media Day is an absolute free-for-all with the head coaches and 10 players from each team set up on risers and the rest available throughout the large room during each team’s designated hour — with the Patriots scheduled from 8-9 p.m. ET and the Seahawks from 10-11 p.m.
In addition to reporters who actually cover the teams and want to, you know, talk about football, there will be representatives from late night shows and flat-out zany characters like this — Ines Gomez Mont from Mexico’s TV Azteca, who famously wore a wedding dress to the event and asked former Patriots QB Tom Brady to marry her — who somehow make it on the list of credentialed “media.”
It’s doubtful anyone will top Lynch — or try — and hopefully we can get through the night with no awkward wedding proposals.
But there will inevitably be some fun clips — and maybe, just maybe, some candid introspection from Super Bowl LX’s most compelling stars — to come out of it all.
Here are six players we’re most interested in hearing from at Media Day on Monday night, and hopefully the cameras and questioners can break away from asking Patriots WR Stefon Diggs about his girlfriend Cardi B long enough to give these guys and others their spotlight too.
Patriots WR Mack Hollins
Unfortunately, Hollins isn’t one of the 10 Patriots players designated to have his own riser, and that’s a shame because it will limit the spotlight he gets Monday night. But we’re still hoping some cameras find their way to the journeyman wideout and, um, unique personality.
From a football standpoint, Hollins is a fascinating story unto himself.
A fourth-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017, he’s played for five different teams in the last five years and six overall — the Eagles in 2017 and 2019, the Dolphins from the end of 2019-21, followed by the Raiders, Falcons, Bills and now Patriots.
And at 32 years old, he’s delivered one of the best seasons as his 46 catches and 550 yards are both the second-most of his career. He accounted for 51 of the Patriots’ 86 receiving yards in their 10-7 snow-riddled slugfest with the Broncos in the AFC championship game.
So there’s that.
And then there’s this, showing up barefoot (it’s kind of his thing) in 16-degree Foxborough, Massachusetts, weather at the Patriots’ Super Bowl sendoff rally.
He might be more of a character naturally than anyone posing as media Monday night could even try to be.
Somebody needs to get this guy in front of a camera Monday night, is all we’re saying.
Patriots DT Milton Williams
Williams was the focal point of the Patriots’ defensive rebuild last offseason, becoming the highest-paid player in franchise history (per annual salary) with a four-year, $104-million contract, and he’s been a tone-setter up front for New England all season.
He also is in a unique position of being the only player this week with the chance to win back-to-back Super Bowl rings.
Williams played a major role in the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl championship over the Kansas City Chiefs last year, sacking QB Patrick Mahomes twice including a forced fumble.
He also is fairly candid in interviews, revealing last week that growing up, “I did not like the Patriots. I did not like the Patriots. … I’m here now so I love the Patriots. … You know when someone always winning, it’s, ‘Man, let somebody else win.'”
To add another layer to that, there’s an old interview before he was drafted out of Louisiana Tech in 2021 in which he said he grew up a Seahawks fan.
Now, that’s a fun storyline worth delving into a little deeper. Williams is one of the Patriots’ 10 players on the spotlight risers for media day.
Patriots LT Will Campbell
Campbell, the rookie left tackle the Patriots drafted with the 4th overall pick out of LSU last spring, is just a good interview, plain and simple.
He’s engaging and known for funny one-liners, which land even better in his Louisiana drawl.
Campbell is also not scheduled to be on one of the risers, but surely someone will pry some more quotable gold out of the reflective rookie.
Seahawks QB Sam Darnold
Sure, Darnold has already reflected plenty on his unique path to becoming a Super Bowl starter after bouncing around the league and now on his fifth team.
But his story is as compelling as any — perceived first-round draft bust with the Jets, given up on by the Panthers, a backup for the 49ers, a belated breakout season for the Vikings last year but not brought back to the team, and now star-making Super Bowl run with the Seahawks — and will be hit from all angles Monday night.
It will be interesting to see if Darnold lets his guard down a little and shares some more candid reflection than he normally does — like this last week — when asked about the path that led him to this moment.
Seahawks NT Jarran Reed
Reed is one of the 10 spotlight Seahawks players Monday night and should be an interesting source of perspective considering he’s a remaining link to Seattle’s “Legion of Boom” era.
Reed wasn’t around in time for the Seahawks back-to-back Super Bowl appearances after the 2013-14 seasons, but he caught the end of that era as a second-round draft pick in 2016, joining a defense that still had the likes of “Legion of Boom” cornerstones Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas, Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright.
(The “Legion of Boom” moniker was initially applied to the Seahawks dominant hard-hitting secondary, but it eventually came to represent the entire stifling defense of those Seattle teams.)
Reed played with the Seahawks from 2016-20 before stints with the Chiefs and Packers and an eventual return to Seattle in 2023.
Seahawks DT Leonard Williams
Williams, a second-team All-Pro selection this season and three-time Pro Bowl pick, is one of the veteran leaders of this Seahawks team and an unofficial spokesman of sorts.
He’s routinely very thoughtful in interviews and go-to source of perspective.
He also was prominently involved in helping this Seahawks defense craft its own identity, both on the field and in turn by adopting its own nickname — “The Dark Side” — which he explained the origins of last month.
Williams should have a big crowd for media day and will not doubt deliver something interesting and noteworthy from his time in front of the cameras.
