Seahawks stifle Drake Maye, Patriots to capture Super Bowl LX

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The NFL’s best team spent the 2025 season hiding in plain sight. Led on defense and special teams, equipped with a quarterback no one believed in and run by a 38-year-old, second-year coach whose personality remains opaque to almost everyone outside his building, Seattle Seahawks Kept his head down and kept working.

“Loose and focused” was the mantra that coach Mike McDonald established for his Seahawks, and they lived by those words throughout Sunday night, as they new England Patriots 29-13 To win the second Super Bowl title in franchise history.

“We love each other,” said the appropriately named Seahawks safety julian loveWho had one of the Patriots quarterback’s two fourth-quarter interceptions drake may That sealed the win on a dominant night for Seattle’s defense. “We’re constantly messing around, never taking ourselves too seriously; but when that whistle blows and it’s between the white lines, that’s when it’s serious. When there’s work to be done, we go to work.”

The Seahawks did exactly that against a Patriots offense that, frankly, hasn’t played very well all season long. Mays was sacked five times in each of New England’s first three playoff games, and Seattle was los angeles chargers, houston texans And denver broncos One better than sacking him six times in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks’ defensive front came at Maye in waves, denying the Patriots any chance to get into any kind of rhythm and have the game go the way they wanted.

“That group was up front, they knew they had to play the most unselfish game we’ve ever seen,” Seahawks defensive coordinator Aidan Durde said. “Someone was going to get a sack, and it didn’t matter who.”

Byron MurphyJoe, who had seven sacks in the regular season, had two Sunday. But others came from unlikely places. derrick hall Tied his regular season sack total by two. fifth round newbie Riley MillsWho played only four regular season games and didn’t get a sack in any of them, he had one. And the other one went to the corner devon witherspoonWho were asked to attack a lot in this game and they did it with gusto.

“Just watching and studying film, we knew how his tackles were going to be set up in pass protection, and we knew he struggled this postseason,” Witherspoon said. “So we were going to attack them.”

The Patriots were ill-equipped to counter Seattle’s strength, and the Seahawks played as if they knew it. Eight of the Patriots’ first nine possessions ended with a punt, and the second ended with a kneel down to end the first half. When the third quarter ended, the Patriots had 78 yards of total offense and had as many first downs – five – as the Seahawks had.

This defensive play-calling was a triumph for McDonald, who is as good at creating pressure as any defensive coach in the league, and delivered a masterclass. Love said they were still setting up new plays as of Saturday, which is not unusual for MacDonald.

Defensive lineman, “As long as he has a game plan.” leonard williams Said. “We’ll sometimes put on a new play on Saturday morning, we’ll sometimes put on a new play at intermission on Sunday. demarcus lawrence They say you have to have a Harvard education to play this defense because you’re constantly learning new things. But I think we have confidence in Mike and his talent and it works out.”

Preseason expectations didn’t shine on Seattle the way they projected Los Angeles Rams And san francisco 49ersTwo better-known offensive mainstays in their own division. By mid-December, it was the division-rival Rams who were being touted as the Super Bowl favorite. Seattle’s wild Week 16 comeback win over those Rams was dismissed as fluky, even though it put them in complete control of the NFC playoff race.

Seattle’s offense was not consistent throughout the season. The run game took months to get going and the quarterback Sam Darnold He struggled with the kind of decline in performance that led to constant outside doubt about his ability to perform well in big games. minnesota vikings They let him walk in 2024 after leading them to a 14-3 season, and Seattle acquired him on the free-agent market for a reasonable $33.5 million per year.

But Darnold had a stellar performance in the NFC Championship Game against the Rams, proving the doubters wrong and confirming the Seahawks’ belief that what he did in Minnesota was no fluke. He struggled against the Patriots defense in Sunday night’s game, but was ultimately able to hold off a New England blitz with a fourth-quarter touchdown pass. aj barner Due to which the score became 19-0.

“I didn’t have my best stuff today, but the team supported me,” Darnold said. “The defense and special teams supported us, and we played like we always play.”

Seattle’s special teams – a key part of its success throughout the season – also deserve mention. punter michael dixon Was a surefire weapon all night when the game was all about field position and field goals.

They kept racing even when it wasn’t working, and got better as the season progressed. even after Zach Charbonnet Tore his ACL in the playoff game against the 49ers, the run game had soared up to that point Kenneth Walker III Can handle the load. And after gaining 135 yards on 27 carries, it was Walker who was named Super Bowl MVP.

“K-9 is special, man!” Prem said. “Seeing how hard he works and how much time he puts in, and to see him win Super Bowl MVP, it’s just crazy.”

However, he could not reach the end zone, which is why the score was still 12–0 late in the third quarter. But it was the Seahawks’ fifth sack – and Hall’s second sack of the game – that tilted the Super Bowl forever. On third-and-6 from their own 44, Mays dropped back to pass and, as was the case most of the night, couldn’t find anyone open. Hall broke the line to sack him and force Mays into his seventh and most costly mistake of the season. Murphy fell on the ball and Seattle was in business at the New England 37. Five plays later, Darnold beat an all-out blitz and found a wide-open passer in the end zone for his first touchdown of the game.

“We’re just going to stick with what we do all year,” Williams said. “We said to ourselves, ‘We just have to be us, but we have to be us.’ And that’s what we did. When we have people playing their roles to the best of their ability, we can’t be stopped.”

It may not have been the prettiest Super Bowl ever, but the Seahawks — to paraphrase their coach’s truly viral moment — don’t care. This is a franchise that traded away its last two starting quarterbacks when they wanted more money than the team thought they were worth and turned to Darnold. This is a franchise that moved on from a great, Super Bowl-winning coach after 11 winning seasons in the last 12 years because it felt it needed new defensive ideas to deal with the high-powered offenses in its division. The Seahawks believe in their culture, their roster-building principles and their ability to find and identify top talent in the draft. All of those things were on display Sunday night.

So it was an vindication for Seahawks general manager John Schneider and his front office, who aggressively pursued McDonald two January ago to replace longtime coach Pete Carroll, and for McDonald, the young defensive talent whose “loose and focused” mantra builds on the culture established by Carroll in Seattle over the years, but also evolves it into something new and fresh. McDonald told his team in the offseason that it was getting in on the ground floor of a new program and that it had to “become” the type of team that can win the biggest games.

The Seahawks had a “loose and focused” approach. It’s a phrase they use a lot around the building, where competitive shadowboxing took over the locker room at some point this season and players use words like “love” and “brotherhood” when talking about the way they came together around McDonald’s offseason message.

“Leadership needs to be ‘loose and focused,'” Love said. “Not every coach is going to enjoy standing on our sidelines shadowboxing or messing around. But this staff and the leaders on this team understand that when the horn blows, if people are informed about the details, that’s OK. You don’t have to control everything a player does every day.”

McDonald’s defensive prowess and culture-setting were rewarded with a Super Bowl title on Sunday night, validating everything about the way the Seahawks operate their franchise. They may have gone 12 years between Super Bowl titles, but they always remained competitive and never lost sight of who they were and what they stood for. Even appearing in the Super Bowl – a first for the vast majority of their roster – didn’t faze them.

“I think that’s been an edge for us all season long,” McDonald said Wednesday. “Every time we’ve gone into a new experience together, knowing that we have principles that we want to follow and they’re our guides in terms of how we want to work and make our decisions. At some point, you’re going to get distracted, and that’s okay, but it’s about how relentless we can be to get back to center, to get back to the moment.”

The result was the moment they all spent their entire lives working for – a moment that will live forever in franchise and NFL history. Loose. Concentrated. Champions.