The last time these two franchises met on the Super Bowl stage, Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson at the goal line, and an entire city spent the next decade relitigating one play call. Eleven years later, the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots are back, and the stakes feel entirely different. Seattle arrives at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara with the most dominant defense in football, a journeyman quarterback who has silenced every doubter this season, and a 38-year-old head coach who might be the best defensive mind the league has seen since Bill Belichick himself. New England, rebuilt from the ashes of the post-Brady era, brings a rookie quarterback with no fear and a franchise that simply refuses to stay irrelevant for long.
Super Bowl LX is not just a football game. It is a referendum on two completely different approaches to building a championship team, and the contrast could not be more stark.
Seattle’s Defensive Identity Under Mike Macdonald
The Seahawks’ defense, nicknamed the “Dark Side” by fans who see echoes of the Legion of Boom in this unit’s suffocating style, has been the story of the 2025 NFL season. Under coordinator-turned-head-coach Mike Macdonald, Seattle ranked first in points allowed, first in yards per play allowed, and first in opponent passer rating during the regular season. The numbers are historic, but what makes this defense special is the scheme that produces them.
According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Seattle blitzed on just 20.7% of passing plays during the regular season, the fifth-lowest rate in the league. Most dominant defenses get there by pressuring the quarterback with extra rushers. Macdonald’s unit does it with four. As ESPN’s Bill Barnwell noted in his pre-game analysis, “The Seahawks generate pressure the way the best defenses always have: with a dominant front four and a secondary that takes away every easy throw.” The result is a defense that forces quarterbacks into holding the ball, second-guessing reads, and eventually making the kind of mistakes that end drives.
Devon Witherspoon has been the heartbeat of this secondary all season. The third-year cornerback earned first-team All-Pro honors for the second consecutive year, and his ability to match up with any receiver in man coverage allows Macdonald to disguise his zone looks in ways that confuse even veteran quarterbacks. Pair him with safety Julian Love, who led the team with five interceptions during the regular season, and the back end of this defense is as airtight as any in recent memory.
Drake Maye and the New England Resurgence
The Patriots’ path to this Super Bowl has been one of the more remarkable rebuilding stories in recent NFL history. Drake Maye, the third overall pick in the 2024 draft, has developed from a raw but talented prospect into a quarterback who looked entirely comfortable leading New England through the AFC bracket. His poise in the pocket, his willingness to push the ball downfield, and his surprising composure in hostile environments have drawn comparisons to a young Andrew Luck.
Maye threw for 3,800 yards and 26 touchdowns during the regular season, per Pro Football Reference, but his best work came in the playoffs. His fourth-quarter performance in the AFC Championship was the stuff of franchise-quarterback validation: trailing by 10 in the fourth quarter, Maye orchestrated two scoring drives with the precision of a veteran, hitting tight windows and extending plays with his legs when protection broke down.
“Drake Maye has that thing you can’t coach,” former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky said on NFL Live. “He doesn’t speed up when the moment gets big. He actually slows down. That’s what separates the franchise guys from everybody else.” Whether that quality survives contact with the Seahawks’ front four is the central question of Super Bowl LX.
The Matchup That Will Decide Everything
Every Super Bowl has a key matchup, and this one is straightforward: Seattle’s pass rush against New England’s offensive line. The Seahawks led the NFL with 52 sacks during the regular season, led by defensive end Leonard Williams, who recorded 14 sacks of his own. Williams’ combination of power and quickness off the edge makes him nearly unblockable in one-on-one situations, and Macdonald has spent all season designing stunts and twists that free him for clean paths to the quarterback.
New England’s offensive line, by contrast, has been the team’s most inconsistent unit all year. According to PFF, the Patriots allowed pressure on 32% of dropbacks during the regular season, 22nd in the league. Left tackle Will Campbell, the team’s 2025 first-round pick, has shown flashes of excellence but remains inconsistent against elite speed rushers. If Williams and the Seattle front can collapse the pocket early and force Maye into hurried decisions, this game could get ugly fast.
The Sam Darnold Factor
Perhaps no player in this Super Bowl carries a more complicated narrative than Sam Darnold. The third overall pick in the 2018 draft has played for four NFL teams, been benched, been mocked, been written off. The infamous “I’m seeing ghosts” moment against the Patriots on Monday Night Football in 2019 became a cultural punchline that followed him everywhere he went. Seven years later, he is one game away from holding the Lombardi Trophy, playing for a coach who has unlocked something in him that no previous coaching staff could find.
Darnold’s regular season numbers were not spectacular by any traditional measure. He threw for 3,400 yards and 22 touchdowns, numbers that rank in the middle of the league among starting quarterbacks. But Seattle has not needed Darnold to be spectacular. They have needed him to be efficient, to protect the football, and to convert on third down when the defense gives him short fields. In those areas, Darnold has been quietly excellent. His third-down conversion rate of 44% ranked eighth in the NFL, per ESPN Stats & Info, and his 3:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio in the playoffs shows a quarterback who understands his role within a defense-first team.
The irony of Darnold facing the Patriots in the Super Bowl is almost too perfect. This is the franchise that broke him mentally as a young Jets quarterback. This is the defense that made him see ghosts. If Darnold can deliver a championship-caliber performance against New England on the biggest stage in sports, it would be one of the great redemption stories in Super Bowl history.
What History Tells Us About This Matchup
The historical parallels for this game are fascinating. The last time a defense this dominant carried a team to a Super Bowl victory was the 2015 Denver Broncos, who won Super Bowl 50 behind Von Miller’s pass rush while Peyton Manning managed the game. Seattle’s situation mirrors that blueprint almost exactly: an elite defense, a capable but not transcendent quarterback, and a game plan that requires controlling the clock and winning the turnover battle.
The Ringer’s preview highlighted another parallel worth considering. The 2013 Seahawks, the last Seattle team to win a Super Bowl, won that championship with a historically great defense that ranked first in points allowed and forced four turnovers in a 43-8 dismantling of the Broncos. This Seattle defense has the talent to produce a similar performance, but Maye is a far more mobile and improvisational quarterback than Peyton Manning was in either of those Super Bowls.
The Prediction
Seattle wins this game, and they win it convincingly. The Seahawks’ defense is the best unit on either side of the ball in this matchup, and the team with the top-ranked scoring defense has won 10 of the last 15 Super Bowls, per Pro Football Reference. Maye is talented, but he is still a second-year quarterback who has never faced a pass rush this relentless or a secondary this disciplined. Macdonald will throw looks at him that he has not seen on film, and the Seattle front four will generate enough pressure without blitzing to collapse the pocket and force the kind of mistakes Maye has largely avoided this postseason.
Darnold will not need to be a hero. He will need to be what he has been all season: steady, efficient, and mistake-free. Kenneth Walker III will carry the load on the ground, Seattle’s defense will create two or three turnovers, and the Seahawks will win their second Super Bowl in franchise history.
Seahawks 24, Patriots 13.
The ghosts are gone. The revenge is complete. And Mike Macdonald, at 38 years old, becomes the architect of a dynasty that is just getting started.
Sources
- Seahawks vs. Patriots: Key Super Bowl intel via NFL Next Gen Stats - ESPN, February 2026
- Super Bowl LX Cheat Sheet: 22 Things to Know About Patriots vs. Seahawks - The Ringer, February 2026
- Pro Football Reference: 2025-26 Season Statistics - Season stats for Darnold, Maye, and team defense
- PFF Premium Stats: Pass Protection Grades - Offensive line pressure rates and grades
