The Seattle Seahawks Are Super Bowl Champions

It's not how we wanted it to end. It's not the way the fairy tale was supposed to end. But it turns out, the fairy tale was completed Sunday night, it was just never written for the Patriots.

I'll get to Sam Darnold in a minute, since he’s the fairy tale's main character. But his prophecy wouldn't have come true if it wasn't for the defense of the Seahawks, who suffocated the Patriots all night long.

There was no where to run, no where to hide. Seattle's defensive front, who I've raved about all season and before the season even started when I picked them to win the NFC West, bullied the Pats' offensive line for 60 minutes.

They relentlessly pressured Drake, often times with just a four man rush. So if the Pats couldn't block four, how would they be able to block more than four? About as well as you'd expect - not really at all.

Drake took six sacks on the night, and was pressured on nearly every drop back. Will Campbell allowed 14 pressures himself, which took the top spot in the 2025 season for offensive lineman. The six sacks brought the Patriots' postseason total to 21, which set a single season playoff record.

Those sacks came on a mix of blitzes and non-blitzes. This one was on a perfectly timed blitz which the Seahawks ran 100 times over, none of which were correctly picked up by the Patriots.

This one wasn't a blitz. This was just one man imposing his will on a lesser man.

And this one, on the same blitz scheme as the first, ended the game (technically this was a pick but should've properly been ruled a strip sack fumble).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDQeU9bii8

I won't go through them all to preserve what's left of my mental well-being, which has been wavering to say the least.

It just wasn't our night. Our defense played their absolute assess off, keeping us in the game into the fourth quarter while the offense couldn't get a first down for an entire half of game play (I don't even want to make funny references cause it hurts too much. I don't want to compare Drake and the Patriots' offense to the British army in the Revolutionary War, who couldn't gain ground in Saratoga or whatever battle they were most eviscerated in).

Christian Gonzalez played one of the best games a DB has played in a long time. He made two TD-saving, diving pass breakups in the first half, and held JSN to one catch for 16 yards in coverage.

Milton Williams also had a game that unfortunately will be forgotten. He was one sack shy of matching his Super Bowl 59 stats of 2 sacks and 4 pressures, a game that certainly added to the final dollar amount of his mega contract. He had several chances at Darnold he couldn't finish, and I'm sure he's kicking himself for that. But him and Gonzo, as well as the defense as a whole, should hold their head high after that performance. With an average or maybe even above average defense this game would've been 31-0 at the end of the third.

I'll save any more Patriots talk for my season in review blog coming in the next week or so. Let's get back to Seattle.

Devon Witherspoon should've been the MVP. There's no doubt in my mind of this, and I think if the stat boys ruled that pick-six a sack fumble he would've.

He made so many big plays, both in coverage and in blitzes. In his six pass rushes, he generated pressure on four of them, including two sacks (again I'm counting the pick-six as a sack because it was), one which caused a defensive TD. In his 47 snaps of coverage, he allowed just 2 receptions for 16 yards. He was everywhere, and was the biggest catalyst on the unit that single-handedly won this game. That to me is an MVP.

That said, I understand why Kenneth won, and I'm not raising hell that he did. The defensive box score for Seattle didn't have a singular line stick out, and in order for the MVP to be stricken from the offense that needs to happen (i.e. Von Miller).

From the first play of the game Kenny caused problems. His speed getting to the edge was underestimated, and the Patriots in general didn't do well setting it. He was shifty and patient in runs up the middle, and broke several Patriot tackles for extra yards. In a game where Darnold and the passing attack was relatively shut down, the Hawks consistently moved the ball into the Patriots red zone for chip shot field goals, mostly because of Walker.

And then there's Darnold. Like Drake in the AFC Championship game, he played the perfect game. He didn't put up godly numbers, he didn't visually or statistically overwhelm, but he did exactly what he needed to do to win; don't turn the ball over, play the field position game, and end every drive with a kick.

Early on I was sure he was going to turn it over, as it seemed like he was begging for the Patriots to pick him off. But he never gave in, and in a game which the Patriots desperately needed a big play on defense to flip the script, they never got one.

The fact that Sam Darnold is a Super Bowl champion is crazy, but equally and debatably more awesome. It's one of the great comeback stories in all of sports, and you can't help but root and be happy for him. Being a pro athlete is tough. Being one who was labeled a bust not once, not twice, but a plethora of times is tougher. It would be easy to give in to the noise, easy to accept your results and performances as fate. But Sammy kept believing, and after countless rejections proved himself right.

I'm glad he had the game he did against the Rams, so people can acknowledge the Seahawks wouldn't have made it to the Super Bowl without him. Because even though it should, the talk won't stop. I mean it was even happening the morning after he hoisted a Lombardi for god sakes. Thankfully for Sam, he doesn't care.

The Seahawks deserved to be champions; they were the best team all year long. Mike McDonald deserves to be a champion. The defense deserves to be champions. JSN and Kenny Walker deserve to be champions. And Sam Darnold deserves to be a champion. It's not always the case, but the best team won.

Congrats to the Seahawks. What a season.