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Seahawks Dominate Patriots

Super Bowl LX was a bit of an oddity. Two teams who were not expected to be there worked their way to the championship game via strong defenses with unknown quarterbacks. Each team had long odds at the beginning of the season in excess of 60-1. In the end the Seattle Seahawks proved to be the better team winning 29-13 in a rather strange and non-exciting game.

There were no household names, superstars or projected future Hall of Famers in this Super Bowl matchup. It was void of great hype as both teams have not been relevant in the past decade. Yes, this was a rematch of 11 years ago, but gone were Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch and the legendary coaches of Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll.

Instead, it was second year quarterback Drake Maye leading a team that won four games last year versus journeyman Sam Darnold who was playing with his fifth team in nine years. In this game one was decent and one was awful.

Darnold has been under much scrutiny throughout his career for being an underachiever but quieted skeptics with two solid seasons the last two years. His numbers weren't great Sunday completing 19 of 38 passes for 202 yards but it was much better than his counterpart.

Maye playing in his first postseason, was responsible for three costly turnovers resulting in 17 Seahawks points including two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown. Maye's decision making was terrible, but he isn't the only one to blame for the Patriots demise.

Offensive Coordinator, Josh McDaniels has to shoulder the bulk of the blame. There was no innovativeness which is normally a trademark of this offense. The game plan was as vanilla as it could get. No aggressive play calls or design passes. New England looked like they had an arrogance that they needed to change nothing. It backfired and played into the hands of the Seattle defense.

Knowing the weak link of the Patriots offense was the left side of its line with rookies Will Campbell and Jarred Wilson, there was no help and no adjustments as the Seahawks defense wreaked havoc on them and embarrassed Campbell who gave up 14 quarterback pressures, which was the most by any player this season. The pressure led to six sacks and had the Patriots playing behind the chains all day, forcing drives of four plays or less on six of their first nine drives.

Credit to Seattle for taking the game to New England and getting enough done on offense. Running Back, Kenneth Walker ran for 135 yards and was unstoppable with his shiftiness and power running, earning him the Most Valuable Player Award.

The game featured many moments of boredom as the teams combined for 15 punts and went without a touchdown being scored until 13:24 remaining in the game. The halftime score of 9-0 was the second lowest in Super Bowl history and was reminiscent of the Patriots 13-3 victory over the Rams in 2019.

Another season is in the books and with the parity that the NFL has become, we may see more surprise teams next year. Hopefully there will be a more exciting final game of the season.