The NFL season is over, the Seattle Seahawks left nary a shred of doubt they were the best team (no surprise here), legacies and narratives swung Sunday night and we have some parting thoughts on all of it.
Almost all of it.
You won’t find any Bad Bunny breakdowns here or our takes on the best Super Bowl commercials, but if you poke around the internet enough you’ll surely find enough of those elsewhere. Meanwhile, we’ve got everything else covered from the Seahawks’ 29-13 decimation of the New England Patriots.
‘Dark Side’ Defense Demoralizes Drake Maye Defines Its Legacy
We have to start with a simple appreciation for the sheer dominance Seattle’s defense delivered Sunday night.
The Seahawks racked up 6 sacks on quarterback Drake Maye, overwhelming the Patriots’ offensive line from all directions at all times and from unsuspecting sources.
New England mustered just 78 yards on 39 plays through three quarters. Aside from a kneel-down by Maye to end the first half, the Patriots punted on eight straight possessions to start the game before losing a fumble on the next.
Maye, who finished one first-place vote short in MVP voting, was 8-for-18 passing for 60 yards and 0 TDs through three quarters (before ironically setting a Super Bowl record for passing yards in a single quarter with 235 and 2 TDs in the fourth, albeit still too little and way too late).
There was a natural narrative leading up to the Super Bowl to compare this Seahawks defense — dubbed “The Dark Side” — with the “Legion of Boom” defense from the franchise’s 2013-14 Super Bowl seasons. The stars of the unit maintained it was important to earn their own identity — and did they ever.
Simply put, they delivered one of the greatest defensive performances in Super Bowl history.
Of those six sacks, two came from defensive end Derick Hall, who matched his total from the entire season. Another came from rookie defensive tackle Rylie Mills for the first of his career after entering the day with just 3 tackles in five total games. Star cornerback Devon Witherspoon had one and nearly a second on a pair of brilliantly designed blitzes that befuddled the Patriots, while standout DT Byron Murphy II had the other two.
The point being, so many Seahawks had their fingerprints on this Super Bowl championship — none more than their 38-year-old head coach Mike Macdonald.
“We had a good tell on what they like to do and how they like to play and how they was going to attack us. So you talk about a coach that put us in the best position to win, that’s our coach right there and that’s why we stand beside him and that’s why we’re always going to have his back,” Witherspoon said. “… You’re talking about a group of guys that’s going to battle and gonna get after you and turn your lights off, you’re looking at them right now and that’s the Dark Side.”
“He will game-plan up until whenever,” DT Leonard Williams said, per ESPN. “We’ll sometimes put a new play in Saturday morning. We’ll sometimes put a new play in Sunday at halftime. DeMarcus Lawrence says you have to have a Harvard education to play in this defense because you’re just constantly learning new stuff. But I think we trust Mike and his genius, and it works.”
It sure does.
Macdonald, in his second year in Seattle, became the third-youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl, behind the Rams’ Sean McVay and former Steelers coach Mike Tomlin.
He was one of the most coveted coaching candidates two years ago as defensive coordinator of a Ravens team that gave up the fewest points in the league in 2023 (16.5 per game) and the third-fewest the year before (18.5 PPG) in Macdonald’s only two seasons as an NFL DC. His Seahawks then led the league this year in giving up just 17.2 PPG. That’s no coincidence.
Macdonald now surges to the top of the list of best coaches in the NFL — and no, that’s not an overreaction to one game or season. There’s every reason to believe these Seahawks are just at the very beginning of what could be a wide Super Bowl window.
“Just the best team I’ve ever been around. The closest, toughest, most connected team I’ve ever been on, and our guys made it come to life,” he said. “… I love them. As great as it is, I wish the season kept going because it’s such a great team.”
Biggest Winner(s) From Super Bowl LX
Macdonald and Seattle GM John Schneider
We’ll circle back to Macdonald again in a moment, but Schneider deserves his spotlight too.
He has now built two separate championship rosters in Seattle more than a decade apart with no overlapping pieces — the first general manager in league history to pull off that feat.
We broke down last week how Schneider built this Super Bowl team over the past few years, collecting pieces to the puzzle each draft and offseason to get the Seahawks back to this point. None bigger than hiring Macdonald, of course.
As one final appreciation for Macdonald’s gameplan Sunday, let’s circle back to Witherspoon and his significant impact on the win.
One of the elite cover corners in the NFL, Witherspoon made his biggest impact Sunday as a blitzer, notching the sack highlighted above and then also causing the loose ball that turned into a 45-yard interception return for teammate Uchenna Nwosu late in the fourth quarter to punctuate the collective performance.
Per NFL Next Gen Stats, Witherspoon was used on 6 pass rushes in the Super Bowl, generating 4 pressures and a team-high 3 quarterback hits. The cornerback hadn’t been used on a blitz all postseason before Sunday as Macdonald saved the element of surprise for the biggest game.
Brilliant.
Super Bowl Champion Sam Darnold
Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold had a modest performance overall Sunday, completing 19 of 38 passes for 202 yards, 1 TD and 0 INTs.
He wasn’t the Super Bowl MVP. He didn’t dominate the highlight reel. But he did it — he completed his incredible comeback arc from perceived draft bust with the Jets to winning the Super Bowl to silence the doubters and finally find his place while on his fifth NFL team.
Macdonald made clear afterward that he didn’t think Darnold ever needed the validation and hopes it puts to rest that old narrative for good.
“Everyone’s made a narrative of this guy. Like, they have tried to put a story and a label on who he is as a person, who he is as a quarterback. He does not care, OK? He is the same guy every day,” he said. “He’s so steadfast. He’s a great teammate. His teammates love him. All he’s done since he’s walked in the door is just been a tremendous player on our football team and a tremendous leader who is the same guy every day. And that’s who he is — and that’s how we need to talk about him moving forward.”
Fair enough, but that narrative wasn’t forced. It’s the unlikely path that Darnold took to the top, and it makes his Super Bowl conquest all the more compelling because of it.
The Jets did give up on him three seasons after drafting him No. 3 overall in 2018, trading him to Carolina. The Panthers did give up on him too after two seasons. Darnold did look like he was headed to the journeyman backup QB stage of his career when he spent the 2023 season in that role for the 49ers.
He was supposed to compete for the starting job with the Vikings the next year before rookie J.J. McCarthy’s preseason knee injury cleared the way for Darnold’s belated breakout season, but even after 14 wins, 4,319 passing yards, 35 TDs and 12 INTs, he wasn’t brought back as a free agent after rough final two games and fresh doubts about whether he could win the big ones.
Playing on his fourth team in four years, he backed up his 2024 performance, quieted the critics with a sterling NFC championship game performance (25-of-36 passing for 346 yards, 3 TDs and 0 INTs) and then finished the job.
The most important stat for Darnold beyond going 3-0 this postseason is that he didn’t turn the ball over once in those games and gave Seattle exactly what it needed.
And whether Macdonald wanted to say it or not, Darnold in turn got exactly what he needed.
“An unbelievable story,” Seahawks WR Cooper Kupp said of Darnold, per GoLongTD.com’s Tyler Dunne. “I don’t know if there’s a quarterback in NFL history that’s done what he’s done. To go through the things that he’s had to go through. To believe in himself. To overcome everyone that told him that he wasn’t that guy anymore, that he couldn’t be a starter, that he couldn’t be a productive quarterback, to just come back to work and commit to his process — and then to go out there in the biggest moments this year over and over and over again — to just show up, stand in the pocket, to make the tough throws, managing the game, it’s an unbelievable story.”
When it came time for Darnold to put the moment into perspective himself, he deflected questions about that journey, the setbacks, etc., and talked about being a part of something bigger than himself — “It’s just like the perfect blend of people that are in that building every single day from the top down.”
And he talked about his parents and their support along the way.
“They believed in me. They believed in me from when I was a child playing this game. I would make mistakes. I would make mistakes off the field too, and they know it. They would teach me lessons and all these things throughout life, and they just believed in me throughout my entire career, and I credit them to why I’m still here, why I’m still chasing this team. Because they always believed in me and allowed me to believe in myself,” Darnold said.
It’s really hard not to root for the guy and feel good to see him get his moment.
Play Of The Game
Derick Hall’s strip sack at the end of the third quarter
It was still a 12-0 game that hadn’t seen a touchdown yet in the waning moments of the third quarter, and the Patriots were approaching midfield with a third-and-6 and still every chance to make it a close game.
But as Maye tried to step up in the pocket to find some space to operate, Hall collapsed on him for his second sack of the game, stripping the ball in the process. Murphy recovered the fumble at the New England 37, and the Seahawks scored five plays later on Darnold’s 16-yard touchdown pass to tight end AJ Barner to push the lead to 19-0.
Given how Seattle’s defense had played and how little the Patriots had moved the ball all game, that lead felt — and indeed proved — to be insurmountable.
Worthy MVP, But …
Seattle’s Kenneth Walker III was named MVP of the Super Bowl, becoming the first running back to claim the honor since Terrell Davis with the Denver Broncos 28 years ago.
Walker certainly earned it with 27 carries for 135 yards and 2 receptions for 26 yards. He didn’t score, but he did the heavy lifting on a number of the Seahawks’ scoring drives.
The 27 carries were a season-high — 8 more than he had in any other game — and the second-highest total of his four-year career. With his backfield mate Zach Charbonnet sustaining a season-ending injury in the first playoff game, Walker answered the call with 116 rushing yards, and 3 TDs (plus 29 receiving yards in that win over San Francisco, 111 combined yards and a TD in the win over Los Angeles and then he saved the best for last.
All told, Walker had 313 rushing yards and 4 TDs plus 104 receiving yards in three postseason games.
After the game, Walker revealed that the Super Bowl was the first NFL game his dad had ever watched inside the stadium because he doesn’t like crowds. Incredible stuff.
If the Super Bowl MVP couldn’t go to the entire Seattle defense, then Walker was a deserving choice for sure.
But it’s fair to wonder if the game hadn’t broken open in that fourth quarter if Seattle’s Jason Myers could have become the first kicker to ever win Super Bowl MVP.
Myers supplied all of the points through the first three quarters and finished 5-for-5 on field goals, though all were in comfortable range (33, 39, 41, 41 and 26 yards).
Special Teams Indeed!
Myers gets his place in the history books nonetheless, though. His 5 field goals set a Super Bowl record, surpassing the previous high mark of 4 shared by the Chiefs’ Harrison Butker (Super Bowl LVIII), the Eagles’ Jake Elliott (LVII), the 49ers’ Ray Wersching (XVI) and the Packers’ Don Chandler (II).
That’s not the only history Myers made Sunday night, though.
He also became the first player in NFL history to score at least 200 points in a season (including postseason), finishing with 206.
Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson held the mark at 198 from his MVP season in 2006.
Myers, the 11-year NFL veteran in his seventh season with the Seahawks, was 41 of 48 on field goals and 48 of 48 on PATs during the season and then perfect in the postseason on 8 field goals and 11 PATs.
He wasn’t the only superlative specialist for Seattle in the Super Bowl, though.
Punter Michael Dickson was incredible, pinning punts at the Patriots’ 2, 4 and 6 — as if New England wasn’t facing enough obstacles on offense as is.
Most Profound Offseason Quote
In explaining his decision to leave the Dallas Cowboys as a free agent after 11 seasons and sign with the Seahawks, Pro Bowl defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence said, “Dallas is my home … but I know for sure I’m not going to win a Super Bowl there, so …”
After one season with the Seahawks, Lawrence has his elusive Super Bowl ring.
Best Performance In Defeat
Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez
There weren’t many highlights Sunday night for the Patriots, but cornerback Christian Gonzalez used the spotlight to show why he’s one of the absolute best in the game at his position.
Biggest Unanswered Question
How injured was Patriots QB Drake Maye?
After injuring his throwing shoulder in the AFC championship game, Maye downplayed any concerns about his shoulder leading up to the Super Bowl.
But after the game, he revealed he needed a shot in his shoulder before the game.
“I shot it up, so not much feeling. It was good to go, and it felt all right,” he said. “… I was feeling good enough to be out there. I wouldn’t put the team in harm’s way to not be myself. Just didn’t make plays tonight.”
He didn’t look like the MVP candidate from the season, that was sure. Of course, a lot of that had to do with his offensive line’s abject inability to protect him or give him a comfortable pocket, but Maye also missed some open receivers while ultimately completing 27 of 43 passes for 295 yards, 2 TDs and 2 INTs after his big fourth quarter.
It’s fair to wonder just how bad the shoulder injury was and how much impact it truly had.
Most Concerning Takeaway
The Patriots invested significantly last offseason to improve their league-worst offensive line, replacing four starters through free agency and the draft.
That included using the No. 4 overall pick on left tackle Will Campbell despite pre-draft questions about Campbell’s arm length and whether he was a more natural fit at guard. The Patriots also used a third-round pick on left guard Jared Wilson.
Both had major struggles in the Super Bowl, but so too did the entire unit. Maye was sacked 21 times this postseason after 47 in the regular season.
Campbell’s struggles, though, are of heightened concern considering the draft investment the Patriots made in him to be their answer at left tackle for years to come. Instead, he’s created a major question for the team.
Campbell also got flak for skipping out on postgame media and not addressing his performance.
We’re not going to roast him for it, though — the Seahawks did enough of that to Campbell for four quarters Sunday night.
Speaking of MVPs
Given Maye’s struggles vs. the Seahawks, it does reinforce the validity of Matthew Stafford edging Maye out for the MVP.
In three games this season vs. Seattle, Stafford was 66-of-112 passing for 961 yards, 8 TDs and 0 INTs.
Just saying …
How About Those Predictions?
It’s time to take stock one final time of our pregame predictions. With a 31-17 Seahawks forecast for the Super Bowl, we were just 2 points off on the actual margin of victory and pretty close to the actual score for that matter.
Overall, we nailed the outright winning in 12 of the 13 postseason games.
Also, if you read our pregame piece on under-the-radar X-factors, it included Seahawks TE AJ Barner (4 catches for 54 yards and the team’s lone offensive TD) and the punter Dickson.
