Indiana and coach Curt Cignetti raised the expectations, pressure and urgency for college football programs and coaches around the country by doing the unthinkable with the Hoosiers in just two years.
Now, the NFL is facing a similar reckoning.
Because either the New England Patriots, coming off back-to-back 4-13 finishes and in just their first season with coach Mike Vrabel, or the Seattle Seahawks, with second-year coach Mike Macdonald and a free agent quarterback who was readily available to any team last offseason, are going to win Super Bowl LX on Sunday night.
And every fan base and team owner around the league should be reacting to that with a heightened “Why not us?” mentality.
Cignetti’s Hoosiers were a more extreme underdog tale, certainly. But their improbable national championship after a century of mostly irrelevance has caused all long shot programs and their fans to at least wonder if they too could be just the right coaching hire away from long-elusive greatness in this competitive-balance-adjusted NIL era of college football.
RELATED: Read all of our coverage leading up to Super Bowl LX
The Unlikely Matchup In Super Bowl LX
The NFL, meanwhile, has long pushed for parity with the salary cap and a path to perennial hope through the draft but also while maintaining a generally accepted level of patience that rebuilds take time and new coaches need an extended runway to takeoff.
These Patriots and Seahawks have challenged that entire concept and thinking, though, as respective 80-1 and 60-1 preseason long shots to win the Super Bowl now just four quarters away doing so Sunday night in Santa Clara, California, after rapid “rebuilds.”
It may seem a stretch to apply what these teams have pulled off to the bleak realities of the perennially hapless Browns, Jets and Raiders, among other maligned teams that seem lightyears away from ever lifting the Lombardi Trophy. But it’s actually plenty applicable.
New England’s Return To Super Bowl Glory
Sure, the New England Patriots were the gold standard for Super Bowl success over the previous two decades, winning six and playing in three others during the Bill Belichick/Tom Brady era. But, the franchise had fallen so far from that perch in short order it wasn’t all that different from those aforementioned afterthoughts.
New England had just one winning season and no playoff victories in the five years after Brady took his talents to Tampa Bay. Picture a washed-up Cam Newton tossing 8 touchdowns and 10 interceptions for a 7-9 Patriots team that ranked 27th in the league in total offense in 2020.
Remember the failed first-round pick for QB Mac Jones that brought diminishing results over three years and bottomed out at 4-13 in 2023 as the Pats tied for the fewest points in the league. And then the misguided one-and-done tenure of overmatched first-time head coach Jerod Mayo that followed with another listless 4-13 finish last season.
Does that all sound like something Jets, Browns or Raiders fans could relate to?
The Patriots hit on drafting QB Drake Maye No. 3 overall in 2024, and granted, that takes some fortuitous fortune as the historical miss rate on even top-10 draft picks at QB proves. But Maye wasn’t an immediate MVP candidate — not until New England overhauled everything around him this offseason, drafting or signing four new starting offensive linemen, a new star receiver in Stefon Diggs, retooling the defense at every level and, of course, hiring Vrabel (along with offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels).
The quarterback piece is more of a roulette spin, but every other part of what the Patriots did last offseason is absolutely in play for any floundering franchise. Or, at least, that should be the thinking.
Hire the right coach, most importantly, and then put a concrete vision in place and be aggressive in free agency rather than relying on three or four draft classes to eventually patch holes — if all goes as hoped, that is.
The Pats Pulled All The Right Strings
More than anything, the message the Patriots’ stunning transformation should send is that if a team did the first part right in choosing an impactful head coach, it shouldn’t be thinking two or three years down the road no matter its starting point.
Per ESPN, the Patriots’ $209 million in guaranteed money to free agents in 2025 was the most of any team in the league last offseason, while they were second overall in total free agency spending behind only the Minnesota Vikings, per Spotrac.com and Overthecap.com.
“You have to believe things sometimes before you can see them,” Vrabel said. “And you have to believe that what you’re doing is the right thing.”
Bingo.
What did the Jets do instead last offseason? (Aside from hiring head coach Aaron Glenn, a defensive coordinator from a team that most often won offensive duels despite its defense.)
They wasted $30 million guaranteed on a two-year, $40-million deal in the misguided move to sign QB Justin Fields, who had lost his job in two different cities in as many years before predictably making it three straight in New York. Beyond that, the Jets signed only two other free agents to deals worth more than $3 million annually — safety Andre Cisco and CB Brandon Stephens. They then traded away their best CB (Sauce Gardner) and best DT (Quinnen Williams) mid-season to prolong their rebuild and hope the future draft capital eventually pays off.
So a year into their “rebuild,” the Jets actually went backward from 5-12 to 3-14 and feel even further away from relevance than they did last offseason, now having to rebuild most of the roster with everything hinging on finding a quarterback in a 2026 draft class that many analysts believe has only one surefire first-round QB talent in Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza.
So, pretty much a reverse Patriots offseason (and outcome). Poor Jets fans.
Need further proof of what the right hire and subsequent commitment to trying to win immediately can do?
Look at the Jaguars this season with first-time head coach Liam Coen, immediately going from 4-13 to 13-4 — their best record this century — and just their second playoff appearance in eight years. Look at the Bears this season with first-time head coach Ben Johnson (the right former Lions coordinator to hire), immediately jumping from 5-12 to 11-6 and their first winning season and division title in seven years.
They were 80-1 and 40-1 long shots, respectively, to win the Super Bowl and both won division titles and were competitive in the playoffs in Year 1 of their new regimes with their arrows clearly pointing straight up heading into 2026. Not coincidentally, they also ranked 10th (Bears) and 11th (Jaguars) in free agent spending last offseason while investing immediately to support their new head coaches.
Or, yes, look at the Seahawks.
Seahawks Quietly Built A Super Bowl Contender
Seattle is a bit of a different case but still plenty relevant to the overarching point here.
The Seahawks never bottomed out under former coach Pete Carroll, but things had gotten stale since the Super Bowl runs of 2013-14. General manager John Schneider, one of the best in the business, knew it was time for change, though, after three straight middling seasons of 7-10, 9-8 and 9-8 and no reason to really expect much better with a mid-tier placeholder at quarterback in Geno Smith for the last two of those years.
In comes Macdonald, one of the most coveted coaches on the market two years ago after his time as defensive coordinator in Baltimore, and he immediately began reshaping the defensive roster in his vision by adding DT Byron Murphy II in the first round of the 2024 draft and making a midseason trade last year for star LB Ernest Jones IV (who blossomed into a second-team All-Pro selection this season).
That investment in winning immediately continued by signing veteran star defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence to a three-year, $32.5-million contract, of course the three-year, $105-million investment in Darnold, a three-year, $45-million deal to give him another proven target in WR Cooper Kupp, a first-round pick (18th) overall to upgrade the offensive line with LG Grey Zabel (a rookie of the year finalist) and then trading up to take star rookie DB Nick Emmanwori early in the second round of the 2025 draft. Among other moves.
Overall, Seattle ranked fourth in the NFL in free agent spending last offseason.
Smart Acquisitions And Mentality Guide The Seahawks To Super Bowl LX
Like the Patriots, the Seahawks also benefitted from a change/upgrade at offensive coordinator in hiring Klint Kubiak.
More important than any individual move, though, was the mindset guiding it all.
“What was important to us was to become a championship team. We weren’t that in the spring,” Macdonald said this week. “We were on our way, that’s what we wanted to become, but in order to get to a stage like this and win a game like this, it’s got to be real and that’s what you have to become.”
Two franchises that knew great success previously also knew how to find it again — by believing, no matter the state of things, that it wasn’t actually far out of reach or that such goals needed to be deferred down the road at all.
The Patriots and Seahawks invested and expected to win immediately — and here they are.
It’s not that it’s a new concept. NFL history is full of remarkable one-year makeovers from afterthoughts to unexpected champions. There’s too many to even start listing, for that matter. Again, the league is set up for any well-run team to have such potential.
But the buildup to Super Bowl LX has absolutely magnified the reality of what every team owner, general manager and fan alike should see is possible with the right moves, a little good fortune, sure, but most importantly the internal belief needed to invest in an immediate reality rather than a theoretical future.
Ten NFL teams hired new coaches this offseason, and for each, the pressure is now on like never before.
