Eleven years ago, on Feb. 1, 2015, a vaunted Seattle Seahawks defence went up against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX — and it was an instant classic. The second phase of the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick dynasty went up against Seattle’s legendary “Legion of Boom” defence in Arizona, and just as it looked like Seattle would secure a second-straight championship — the first team to do so since the Brady-led Patriots in 2005 — a city’s heart was broken.
With the Patriots up four in the final minute of the game, the Seahawks had reached the one-yard line, needing a touchdown to take the lead. Then, in one of the most famous (or infamous, if you’re a Seahawks fan) plays in Super Bowl history, backup cornerback Malcolm Butler jumped in front of a pass intended for receiver Ricardo Lockette at the goal line. A budding dynasty in the Emerald City was abruptly cut off at the knees. In New England, after being held without a title since that 2005 repeat, their dynasty was revived. They’d appear in three of the next four Super Bowls, winning two of them.
While the Patriots succeeded, Seattle imploded. The fallout from that one fateful play was catastrophic. With some inside the building viewing coach Pete Carroll’s choice to pass the ball on the goal line — rather than run it with arguably the league’s best running back, Marshawn Lynch — as a show of favouritism to Russell Wilson, the team’s star quarterback, a rift grew in the locker room. The defence resented their quarterback. A previously close-knit group devolved to infighting and petty grievances.
One by one, the Legion of Boom Seahawks fell. Richard Sherman, the self-described “best corner in the game,” left for Seattle's bitter rival, the San Francisco 49ers. Kam Chancellor, one of the game’s hardest-hitting safeties, had his career ended from a neck injury. Earl Thomas, Chancellor’s partner in the defensive backfield, lasted the longest, but also fell the hardest. He left Seattle after breaking his leg — giving the middle finger to Carroll while he was carted off the field.
Just a year before that New England game, Seattle had been at the top of the world, holding what was arguably the best offensive unit in NFL history, the Peyton Manning-led Denver Broncos, to only eight points in Super Bowl XLVIII. It looked like the start of something special. Thanks to Malcolm Butler, it wasn’t.
The demise of the Legion of Boom sent the Seahawks spiralling, looking for a new identity. They tried tying themselves entirely to Wilson’s star power. They tried making big swings for players like safety Jamal Adams. They tried riding the career resurgence of former backup quarterback Geno Smith. They were never really ‘bad’ — a perennial playoff team — but they were never great. Since Super Bowl XLIX, the Seahawks had never advanced past the divisional round.
That’s why, in 2024, Seattle made their most drastic move yet. On Jan. 10, they fired Carroll after 14 seasons as the head coach, a stunning move given both his longevity, and the fact that Seattle was coming off a winning season, finishing 9–8. But the Seahawks and general manager John Schneider were done with mediocrity. With Carroll’s firing, the final link to the Legion of Boom defence was severed. It was time for a new era.
On Jan. 31, 2024, they had found their man. Mike Macdonald, the former defensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens, was to join the Seahawks as their new head coach, replacing Carroll, looking to revitalize a long-stagnant organization. The hope was that, coming off a season where Macdonald had led the Ravens to becoming the No. 1 defence in the league in numerous statistical categories, he’d be able to achieve something similar in Seattle.
Two years after Macdonald’s hiring, that vision was achieved, in the most poetic way possible. In Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8, 2026, the Seahawks defeated the team that started their death spiral more than a decade ago, beating the Patriots 29–13. The demons had been exorcised. In hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, Seattle had once again reached the mountaintop, once again, led by a league-best defence. But this wasn’t the old Seahawks. They had been born anew.
“We just kept hearing comparisons to the Legion of Boom, and we kinda just thought it was time for us to have our own name,” said defensive tackle Leonard Williams on Super Bowl media night.
Their name? The Dark Side.
The early seeds of the Dark Side were planted long ago. Long before Macdonald had arrived, long before their recent success. It started with a bold move by Schneider and the front office. To revive the franchise, they would trade away their best player.
After throwing that goal line interception in the Super Bowl — while the rest of the team folded in on itself — Russell Wilson continued to improve. In some ways, he needed to. While in the past, he could rely on his defence to pick up the slack when he and the offence struggled, as the defence fell off, he was called on more and more. His numbers improved. His ludicrous escape-artist acts in the pocket grew more and more absurd. Gradually, Wilson had become one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Yet, only a year removed from a season in which Wilson hit near career-highs in passing yards and touchdowns, the Seahawks got rid of him.
On Mar. 8, 2022, Wilson was traded to the Denver Broncos for a haul of draft picks, quarterback Drew Lock, defensive tackle Shelby Harris and tight end Noah Fant. At the time, it seemed unthinkable. In making this trade, Seattle seemingly had resigned themselves to a rebuild, with no clear successor at the sport’s most important position.
In the end, it would be the best move the franchise had ever made. Wilson’s play cratered in his first year with the Broncos, eventually being cut two years after the trade, paying $85 million in dead cap for Wilson to not play for them. The Seahawks, on the other hand, rebuilt on the fly, hitting on almost every single draft pick they received from that trade.
With their first pick from the trade, they selected left tackle Charles Cross from Texas A&M University, a stud blindside blocker who was recently extended on a $104 million contract, helping solidify a Seattle offensive line that had been subpar for a decade.
But the bulk of the draft picks would be spent on the side of the ball Seattle had neglected since the demise of the Legion of Boom — the defence. In 2023, Seattle chose cornerback Devon Witherspoon 5th overall in the draft, a Pro Bowler every year he’s been in the league, and the team’s best defensive back. They also took edge rushers Boye Mafe and Derick Hall in the second round in back-to-back years, who have combined for 30 sacks in the time they’ve been on the team.
And those players are just the ones they got from the Wilson trade.
While Macdonald revitalized a stagnant culture, rebuilding the defence after years of decay under Carroll, it was Schneider, from the front office, that gave him the material to do so. His boldest and biggest move was the Wilson trade, but ever since that deal in 2022, he’s made plenty of smaller, savvy moves to bolster the defensive core he formed off the Wilson trade.
In 2023, he traded two draft picks to the New York Giants for defensive tackle Leonard Williams, who has subsequently had some of the best years of his career in Seattle, despite being a 10-year veteran. Almost exactly a year later, he landed linebacker Ernest Jones IV in a trade with the Tennessee Titans, who has now become one of the foremost vocal leaders in Seattle’s locker room, instantly improving the Seahawks’ run defence as one of the best linebackers in football.
On top of that, he continued to draft well, both at the top of the draft, getting studs like Byron Murphy II and rookie phenom Nick Emmanwori, while also finding gems along the margins like Riq Woolen (5th round), Coby Bryant (4th round), Josh Jobe and Drake Thomas (undrafted, via Eagles and Raiders, respectively).
None of these moves were guaranteed to work. After all, Schneider’s last major move had been a disaster.
In July 2020, Schneider worked out a deal with the New York Jets to trade away multiple first-round picks for safety Jamal Adams, an All-Pro level talent that had been stashed on a bad team for his entire career. Moving Adams to Seattle was supposed to be the spark that reignited a secondary that had been mediocre or worse since the Legion of Boom days.
It did not. Adams lasted four years in Seattle, and while he had a very solid season in 2020, making both the Pro Bowl and the All-Pro team for the third time in his career, injuries and ineffectiveness took their toll. He succeeded in 2020 because of his ability to rush the passer from the secondary, racking up 9.5 sacks, the most by a safety in NFL history. He wouldn’t have a sack the rest of his Seahawks career. When he wasn’t rushing the passer, he was a liability in coverage. The Seahawks unceremoniously cut him in 2024, only having played 34 games for the team.
But Schneider’s failure to hit on that trade didn’t impede him from continuing to make big swings. In the NFL, sometimes even the surest thing can fail — and rather than wallowing in it, you have to be able to get backup, and keep throwing punches. Schneider did, and from the Wilson trade onward, he landed almost all of them.
When the confetti fell on the 2026 Seahawks after their win against the Patriots, much had changed. Not a single player remained from their prior Super Bowl appearance. After Carroll was fired in 2024, it marked a total turnover from that team’s coaching staff. The only constant? Schneider.
In winning Super Bowl LX, Schneider became the first GM in NFL history to build two Super Bowl champions that were completely separate from each other — no holdovers in personnel. He had successfully replaced an all-time great defence with another all-time great defence. But to win a Super Bowl, you need more than just one side of the ball. And while Schneider built his defence through a combination of shrewd trades, draft picks and signings, his vision for the offence was even more brash.
For San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan — relegated to sideline media obligations for Super Bowl LX after his squad was defeated by the Seahawks in the divisional round of the playoffs — there was a clear reason why Seattle was playing for a championship.
“I think there were two Super Bowl defences this year, and it was Seattle and [the] Houston [Texans],” he said. “When I say that, it means they’re capable of winning totally on their own if the other side of the ball — special teams and offence — [doesn’t] mess it up.”
For Houston, that was exactly what happened. Despite an all-time great performance from their defence, grabbing an interception and forcing four fumbles, their offence imploded, losing them their divisional round playoff game against the team that would eventually make the Super Bowl from the AFC, the Patriots. Texans quarterback CJ Stroud threw four interceptions — most of them unforced errors — for a quarterback rating of 28.0. For reference, if Stroud had simply thrown the ball in the dirt on all 47 of his pass attempts, he would have finished with a significantly better rating at 39.58.
Houston wasted their Super Bowl defence. For Seattle, there was a legitimate fear they’d do the same.
On Nov. 16, 2025, the Seahawks were facing their toughest test of the season thus far. After starting the season hot with a 7–2 record in their first nine games, they’d be faced with the squad that many believed was one of the best teams in football, their division rival, the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams also came into this contest 7–2 — but there was reason to believe they could have easily gone undefeated. Their two losses both came on the final play of the game, losing to the Eagles on a blocked end-of-game field goal, and to the 49ers on a failed fourth down conversion in overtime. They were a juggernaut.
This game would have massive playoff implications. Since only division winners can host playoff games, whichever of the two teams lost the division would face a much tougher path to the Super Bowl, going on the road for every game — while the division winner would play at home and get an extra week off. It was early in the season, but this one mattered.
Seattle’s defence held up their end of the bargain. They held eventual NFL MVP, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, to only 130 yards passing, while Los Angeles’ No.1 offence only mustered 21 points. The Seahawks offence shot themselves in the foot.
Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold had a ghastly performance, throwing four preventable interceptions, continually putting his defence in bad spots and ultimately losing the game 21–19. It was exactly the recipe that Shanahan outlined. A Super Bowl-calibre defence can win you games. But if your offence implodes, you won’t have much of a shot.
This wasn’t new for Darnold. The third overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft, up to this point in his career, had been defined by disappointment. Selected by the New York Jets as a potential franchise saviour, Darnold flamed out quickly. In his three years with the team, he threw 39 interceptions in 38 games, developing a penchant for costly turnovers that hurt his team. While Jets fans had visions of returning to the playoffs under the guidance of their hyped quarterback prospect, Darnold’s most memorable Jets moments were instead gaffes, including a mononucleosis diagnosis and a performance so dreadful that Darnold remarked that he was “seeing ghosts” on the field.
After being traded by New York in 2021, Darnold made the rounds as a backup, with stints with the Carolina Panthers, 49ers and Minnesota Vikings. His story was seemingly written.
Yet, it was in Minnesota where he got his chance for redemption. After presumed Vikings rookie starter JJ McCarthy was ruled out for the year with an injury, Darnold was called up to play, the first time he would begin the season as the starting quarterback in three years.
He was incredible.
Pairing with star receiver Justin Jefferson, Darnold led the Vikings to a 14–2 record through their first 16 games, a shocking turnaround for a team that wasn’t expected to win more than seven games before the season. Mostly cutting down on the turnovers, Darnold threw for more than 4,000 yards and 35 touchdowns, leading his team to the top of the conference, with a grudge match against in-division rival Detroit in the final game of the season — a game that would decide the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
In the worst possible moment, Darnold returned to his Jets form. While he didn’t throw an interception, the offence stalled, with Darnold continually flustered by a Lions defence that was missing multiple key starters, completing less than half of his passes. The Vikings lost, and would have to go on the road for their first playoff game. In that game, Darnold didn’t fare any better. Against the Rams, Darnold crumbled, throwing an interception and losing a fumble while guiding the offence to only nine points. After a miraculous 14 win season, the clock struck midnight on Darnold’s Cinderella run, turning into a pumpkin right when his team needed him to step up.
The Vikings didn’t re-sign Darnold after the season. They instead chose to try McCarthy, who would be healthy for next season. After all that, he was in the same spot he’d been much of his career — doubted and without a job.
The eventual marriage between Darnold and Seattle was a result of mutual desperation, more than anything.
The Seahawks offence post-Wilson trade had been better than anyone could have expected it to be. After Wilson was shipped to Denver, the next man up was career backup Geno Smith, another failed Jets quarterback who had been from team to team after flaming out as a starter in New York. Without their star signal-caller, Seattle was expected to be one of the worst teams in the league.
Instead, Smith led a remarkable career resurgence, beating Wilson and the Broncos in the first week of the season and leading Seattle back to the playoffs in his first year as a starter. Smith continued to play well for Seattle over the next two years, posting winning seasons in every year with the team, being in-line for a major contract extension from the Seahawks heading into the 2025 season.
Seattle made him an offer. He declined, and instead requested a trade. He was shipped to Las Vegas soon after. His reasons for doing so are relatively unclear, but the spectre of expectations clearly followed him.
“I always felt like I was trying to replace Russell [Wilson in Seattle],” Smith told ESPN in an interview in Sept. 2025. “You can never replace all the great things that he did. So I never felt like Seattle was my team.”
In the middle of the off-season, Seattle was without a quarterback — the most important position in the sport. That by itself was dire, but it wasn’t the extent of their issues. Only three days earlier, Seattle’s receiver room had been decimated. After a noticeable decline in play, the team had released franchise legend Tyler Lockett, who had been with the team for 10 years. Hours later, star receiver DK Metcalf, like Smith, requested a trade.
Metcalf was a multi-time Pro Bowler in his six years in Seattle, and had mostly replaced Lockett’s production as the team’s No. 1 receiver as he developed. Now, both were gone. They’d need instead to rely on former third-string receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba to replace the production of both players — a tall task, as while Smith-Njigba had shown promise, especially in his second year, he had not yet lived up to the pedigree expected of his draft status, being selected in the first round in 2023.
So, scrambling to duct-tape together a functional offence, Schneider gave Darnold a 3-year, $100 million deal to replace Smith, hoping the rest of the offence would gel.
Somehow, it did.
Under the guidance of new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, Darnold and Smith-Njigba lit the league on fire, with Darnold looking even better than his breakout year in Minnesota, linking with Smith-Njigba for countless explosive plays. Smith-Njigba became one of the best receivers in the NFL, leading the league in receiving yards with 1,793, eventually winning the league’s Offensive Player of the Year award. Behind an improved offensive line, running backs Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet racked up 1,027 and 730 yards on the ground, respectively. Everything was clicking.
But as the Nov. 16 Rams game proved, the team still had one major question mark. Could Darnold perform in the big moments? While he was playing well in the rest of the season, with his four interception performance, his critics only got louder. From the Lions and Rams games as a Viking, to this Rams game as a Seahawk, in the three biggest games of his career, he almost single-handedly lost his team the game.
As Darnold had proven in Minnesota, it doesn’t matter how well you play throughout the season if you can’t come through when it matters most. Now, some were starting to wonder if he ever could.
This was a massive pivot point for Seattle. While the stakes weren’t as high as Super Bowl XLIX, the story was similar. After the defence played some of their best football, putting the offence in a position to win, the offence let the team down. In the years following the Wilson interception, the offence’s ineptitude fractured the team, with the defence turning against Wilson and the offence. Would the same thing happen here?
Following the Nov. 16 Rams loss, linebacker Ernest Jones IV got up to the podium for his typical post-game press obligations. For Jones, this loss hurt more than most. While he had to be disappointed that his team lost despite his side of the ball excelling, it was even more painful knowing where Jones came from. This was Jones’ first full year in Seattle, originally being drafted by the team the Seahawks had just lost to, the Rams. Jones had won a Super Bowl in Los Angeles, developing into a foundational piece for their defence. Then, they gave up on him.
The Rams traded Jones to the Titans for a measly return, a decision that Rams head coach Sean McVay characterized as “what we felt was best for the football team.” For Jones, it was more than that.
“They thought I wasn’t going to be anything,” he told The Athletic’s Michael Shawn-Dugar. “They thought I was going to be dead and out [of] this league pretty soon.”
Playing the Rams for only the third time since the trade, he had a chance to make amends. He couldn’t — and it wasn’t really his fault.
But when Jones went to speak after the game — before anyone could ask him a question — he spoke up. Not about his past with the Rams. Not about his defence’s performance. Not about frustration with his offence. He spoke out in defence of his quarterback.
“Sam’s been balling,” he said. “If we want to try to define Sam by this game … Sam’s had us in every fucking game. So for him to sit there and say, ‘Oh, that’s my fault, my fault,’ no it’s not ... He’s our quarterback. We got his back. If you have anything to say, quite frankly, fuck you.”
If anything, that was the moment this team was born. In a moment where the leader of the defence had the chance to call out his offence and his quarterback — and been fully in the right to do so — he didn’t. The locker room stuck together. The team stuck together.
The Seahawks haven’t lost a game since.
Stringing together win after win, Seattle didn’t let that Rams loss faze them. They won four straight games before a rematch with Los Angeles at home, and this time, Darnold came through. With the Seahawks down 30–14 with eight minutes left in the game, Darnold brought his team back in the game, throwing a game-tying touchdown to AJ Barner before leading an impressive drive in overtime to win the game, first throwing a touchdown to Smith-Njigba before adding the deciding two-point conversion to Eric Saubert.
It was Darnold’s first big win. But it wasn’t the last. He beat the 49ers twice in a row, once to clinch the No. 1 seed in the NFC, and then again in the playoffs. In a grudge-match against the Rams in the NFC Championship — one step away from the Super Bowl — Darnold bailed out an uncharacteristically poor performance from the Seattle defence to send Seattle to the big game. Heading into Santa Clara, for the largest stage of all, while still present, the doubters were quieter. The ghosts were gone.
Heading into the Super Bowl, Seattle was a fully realized team. Based off points against, their defence was the best in the league. Their offence wasn’t far behind, ranking third in scoring. They could beat teams in multiple different ways.
Their opponent, the Patriots — while of historical significance, given the result of Super Bowl XLIX — faced an uphill battle against this Seahawks team.
By all measures, the Patriots shouldn’t have been here. Coming off a disastrous 4–13 season, their first without legendary coach Bill Belichick, New England cratered. Jerod Mayo, who had been directly appointed by owner Robert Kraft as Belichick’s successor, was fired after one season on the job. While new coach Mike Vrabel — former Patriots linebacker in the 2000s — came in with a record of success, there was a long way to go until they were contenders again.
Then, with second-year quarterback Drake Maye blossoming into an MVP candidate, the Patriots took the league by storm. After a middling 2–2 start to their season, the Patriots went on a tear, winning 16 of their next 17 games, finishing with a 14–3 record and cruising through the AFC playoffs. Their only issue? Strength of schedule.
As a team coming off a last-place season, the cards were inherently stacked in New England’s favour before the year. The NFL schedule is dynamic according to where teams finish. While some opponents will remain the same, as teams always play in-division opponents twice, and a select division from both the NFC and AFC once — the remainder of a team’s opponents are determined by where they place in their division. First-place teams play first-place teams. In New England’s case, fourth-place teams play fourth-place teams.
Of the 18 games the Patriots played in the regular season, 11 of those were against teams who would end up firing their coach after the year. While it’s not necessarily a knock against the team — you can only play your schedule — there was a sense they hadn’t been tested yet.
Even in the playoffs, they were given beneficial situations. The aforementioned Stroud performance helped New England salvage a win even when their offence struggled. Against Denver in the AFC Championship, Broncos quarterback Bo Nix was out for the game, having broken his ankle after beating Buffalo in the divisional round. A win is a win, and New England’s defence in particular was spectacular throughout their run. But Seattle would be by far their toughest test.
In the first half, while the New England defence was passing their test with flying colours, their offence did not. Seattle’s defence was relentless, particularly when it came to their pass rush. After sacks from Derick Hall and Devon Witherspoon ended New England’s first couple drives, the Patriots’ young star quarterback started to struggle.
Because of the pressure from the Seattle pass rush, Maye started to speed up his process while throwing — mostly to his own detriment. Hurried throws went off-target or into coverage. The New England offensive line continued to crumble. On one play, rookie Seahawks defensive tackle Rylie Mills — who had only played in 5 games before the Super Bowl — bull rushed right through the face of the New England guard, taking down both Maye and the guard at the same time.
Seattle’s ‘Dark Side’ defence had completely shut out the Patriots in the first half — a remarkable accomplishment considering that it had only been done 14 times before in the 60-year history of the big game. All 14 times, the team that was shut out lost.
All the pieces that Schneider had assembled were coming together, under a scheme by Macdonald that was clearly getting in Maye’s head. All three players to sack Maye in the first half — Hall, Witherspoon and Mills — were drafted by Schneider in the past three years.
On the other side of the ball, while Darnold and the offence were similarly struggling against a tough Patriots defence, only mustering nine points before the break, they were moving the ball much more effectively than Maye’s squad. While the Patriots dialed up blitz after blitz, attempting to pressure Darnold just as the Seahawks were pressuring Maye on the other side, Darnold remained calm in the pocket, calmly dodging incoming Patriots defenders to find space for quick gains. None of it had led to touchdowns, but the Seahawks had stacked points by taking small victories where they could get them, and most importantly for Darnold — avoiding the big mistake.
It wasn’t the best game for Seattle’s quarterback. Their defence stole the show. But in some ways, it was the ultimate evolution of his game. What had always been Darnold’s Achilles heel — interceptions and turnovers — was absent from his game. In fact, they had been the whole post-season.
After a season in which Darnold threw the third-most interceptions in the league, Seattle became the first team in NFL history to win the Super Bowl without committing a single turnover in the playoffs. Sam Darnold had arrived.
Yet, while Darnold’s smart play — and major contributions by Walker on the ground — kept the Seahawks in the driver’s seat in the first half, in the second, it was the defence’s time to shine. After the third quarter opened with more back-and-forth punting — interrupted only by Seattle adding a field goal on their opening drive to balloon their lead to 12–0 — the Dark Side took over.
With Maye leading the Patriots on a promising drive, reaching their own 44-yard line, the furthest they’d advanced since the opening quarter, Hall broke through the Patriots line yet again. Reaching the quarterback, Hall landed a well-timed punch on the ball, knocking it free, where it rolled behind Maye, laying there for a few seconds before Byron Murphy jumped on the ball. In a game that hadn’t quite been broken open yet, that might have been the defining play — the first turnover of the night.
It was all Darnold and the offence needed. With a well-designed tight-end motion, Barner broke open in the corner of the end zone only five plays later, opening up a 19–0 lead that, for a Patriots team that had yet to cross the Seattle 44-yard line, felt impenetrable. With only one quarter left, anticipation started to build.
But they couldn’t celebrate too early. With some of his best throws of the night, Maye fought his way back into the contest, with a couple beautifully placed deep balls to receiver Mack Hollins getting the Patriots down the field with ease — a stunning reversal of fortune after they had looked dead all game. In little more than a minute, the Barner touchdown had been answered, and the Seattle lead was back down to 12, being up 19–7.
Having to punt back to New England, Maye took the field with the opportunity to cut Seattle’s deficit to one score. The Seahawks knew far too well that games against the Patriots in the Super Bowl were never over — in Super Bowl XLIX, they had led by 10 going into the fourth before the Butler play sealed their fate. Seattle’s defence wouldn’t fold that easily, though.
Epitomizing the attention to detail that had served this defence well all year, Seattle safety Julian Love had noticed a tendency from New England’s rookie quarterback.
“Classic young quarterback,” he said to teammate Coby Bryant on the sideline. “As soon as that back foot hits, he’s going to where he wants, but he’s pausing for a second to confirm that he’s open … there’s a little hitch there, be sure you jump that.”
His intuition paid off. While Maye dropped back to throw a deep ball, looking to connect quickly like he had on the previous drive, this time, Love was there waiting. On a poor throw from Maye, Love was in the right spot, undercutting the route to snag an easy interception. With less than nine minutes left, the Patriots had been officially put on life support.
Then, when New England got the ball back, it was Witherspoon who delivered the killing blow. In his third year as a Seahawk, Witherspoon has surpassed all expectations. As the player who had ended up being the key piece of the Wilson trade four years ago, he had revitalized the defence when he joined the team as a rookie.
“[Witherspoon is] everything to this defence, everything to this team,” Jones told The Athletic’s Michael Shawn-Dugar in September. He brings the juice, brings the energy. When a guy like that is giving his all every play, you want to do the same for him.”
On a well-schemed Macdonald blitz, Witherspoon burst through. With linebacker Uchenna Nwosu by his side, Witherspoon found space in between the guard and the tackle, racing through to Maye untouched with this trademark speed. Just as Maye wound up to throw, Witherspoon hit him hard as the ball came forward, knocking it loose, where it dropped into the awaiting arms of Nwosu, who took it back for the score. At 29–7, the game was over.
As Seattle hoisted the Lombardi trophy after the game, they could finally celebrate. Everything they had been working toward all year had finally been accomplished. An unmatched catharsis.
For some, Super Bowl LX was uneventful. It’s already being retroactively derided as “boring” by some, ranking among the worst Super Bowls in terms of entertainment value in the eyes of the unaffiliated fan. Seattle doesn’t care.
A common motto used by Macdonald throughout the year was “it doesn’t have to be close.” If the Seahawks are better than the team they’re going up against, they want it to be boring. They want it to be non-competitive. This is exactly what they were looking for.
After Seattle’s 31–27 win over the Rams in the NFC Championship, Macdonald took the stage to accept the George Halas trophy, and was asked by FOX host Michael Strahan what it meant to beat the Rams, given that, before the season, the Seahawks were counted out in their division, where the 49ers and Rams were heavy favourites. His response has already been enshrined in Seattle sports lore.
"We did not care. It's about us. It's always been about us and what we do, and now we're going to the Super Bowl."
To some, Macdonald’s response may seem arrogant — brushing aside their opponents, maybe even demeaning them in the process. But that’s not what it’s about.
For this Seahawks team, the opponent hasn’t mattered because for Macdonald, Schneider and all the players on this roster, they’ve understood that building and improving as a unified team is more important than getting the win on the field.
So many of Macdonald’s mantras echo this. He’s talked about “12 as one,” the importance of bringing all 11 players on the field, plus the fans (as the honorary 12th player) together as a cohesive unit. He’s talked about “chasing edges,” looking for the small things that they can do better as a group to give them a slight advantage. He’s embodied the concept of “stacking wins,” using each game to build upon the next, improving with each one — a metaphor that he has literalized in the Seattle building by impaling the helmets of past opponents on a long spear after each win.
The outside noise, whether it be about rival teams, expectations, criticisms of their quarterback — it doesn’t matter to them. As Macdonald put it, it’s always been about them.
We did not care. It's about us. It's always been about us and what we do, and now we're going to the Super Bowl.
So, Seattle’s win over New England in Super Bowl LX was a full-circle moment in multiple ways. Yes, it ended Seattle’s Super Bowl drought against the very team that had started it. Yes, they beat both their division rivals — the 49ers and the Rams — in the playoffs after being inferior to both teams for a half-decade plus. Yes, the player that sealed the game for the Seahawks was acquired by trading away the player that had thrown the game-losing interception in their last Super Bowl appearance.
But more than anything, it’s full-circle because of the makeup of this Seattle team. In the aftermath of Super Bowl XLIX, the team splintered apart under their own weight. After Super Bowl LX, the Seahawks are more together than ever.
“It’s just a complete team,” Love told Shawn-Dugar after their Super Bowl win.
“We’ve won every game this year in different ways. It didn’t feel like work a single day this year. I don’t want this to end. We love each other.”
