Both teams have overcome tall odds and plenty of doubters to make it this far, but now they are one win away from becoming Super Bowl champions. The NFL‘s biggest stage is set.
After 18 weeks of the regular season and three rounds of playoff games, only two teams are left standing.
And while few could’ve predicted either of these teams making it this far – not even the Opta supercomputer at the onset of the season – they’ve both proved over the last five months to be two of the NFL’s most complete teams.
Now, just 60 minutes of football separates either the Seattle Seahawks or the New England Patriots from raising the Lombardi Trophy, as these two powerhouses collide in Super Bowl 60 on Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
The Patriots are appearing in their 12th Super Bowl and seeking a record seventh title, while the Seahawks have won one Lombardi trophy and are playing in the season’s final game for the fourth time – and first since losing to New England 11 years ago in one of the most memorable Super Bowl finishes of all time.
Malcolm Butler's goal-line interception in Super Bowl XLIX is something we will never forget pic.twitter.com/xm0SOtOxR2
— Gridiron (@Gridiron) February 9, 2023It’s always a long journey for any team to get to this point, but it was an especially improbable path given where these teams began the season.
Before the start of the season, the supercomputer ran thousands of simulations and calculated the Seahawks’ chances of making the Super Bowl at 1.0%. And somehow that paltry number was triple the Patriots’ probability at 0.3%.
Can’t blame the supercomputer with New England coming off a four-win season and bringing in a new coach to pair with a second-year quarterback.
Seattle, meanwhile, was bringing in a new quarterback to pair with a second-year coach after missing the playoffs each of the previous two seasons.
Sam Darnold merely led the Seahawks to a 14-3 regular season, an NFC West crown and the conference’s top seed, while Drake Maye directed the Patriots to a 14-3 regular season, an AFC East title and the conference’s No. 2 seed.
Led by defensive-minded coaches in Seattle’s Mike Macdonald and Mike Vrabel in New England, each team, not surprisingly, boasts one of the NFL’s stingiest defenses, with the Seahawks allowing a league-low 17.2 points per game in the regular season and the Patriots ranking fourth at 18.8 per contest.
However, they also feature two of the league’s top-scoring offenses with New England’s 28.8 regular-season scoring average ranking second, one spot ahead of Seattle at 28.4 points per game.
Both teams have overcome tall odds and plenty of doubters to make it this far, but now they are one win away from becoming Super Bowl champions.
The stage is set. Who will come out on top?
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The Seattle offense revolves around superstar wide receiver Jaxson Smith-Njigba, so keeping him in check and preventing him from reeling off big plays is paramount for New England when Seattle has the ball.
Although the Seahawks captured the NFC’s top seed, there were still some questions about their legitimacy and if Darnold could win a big game after he floundered down the stretch last season with Minnesota. The Vikings lost in Week 18 with an opportunity to clinch the NFC’s top seed and then again the following week in a wild-card game against the Los Angeles Rams.
After serving as more of a game manager because of an oblique injury in Seattle’s emphatic 41-6 win over the San Francisco 49ers in a divisional game, Darnold quieted his critics and shook off the injury to put together a superb showing in a 31-27 victory over the Rams in the NFC championship game. He completed 25 of 36 passes for 346 yards with three touchdowns and no turnovers.
It would’ve been considered a brilliant performance by any QB given that it came under the bright lights of a conference championship game, but it was especially inspiring seeing as it came by a QB who flamed out with the New York Jets and admitted to coaches he was “seeing ghosts” during a blowout loss to the Patriots in his second season in 2019.
It also came at the perfect time with Seattle unable to get its ground game going behind Kenneth Walker III. The team rushed for 75 yards and 2.88 yards per attempt in its first game since Zach Charbonnet’s season-ending injury. The Seahawks averaged 172.3 rushing yards and 5.18 yards per carry in their previous four contests.
The Patriots ranked sixth in rushing defense in the regular season (101.7 yards per game) and have been even better in the postseason, yielding an average of 71.3 rushing yards and 3.15 yards per carry in three playoff games.
Can New England keep it going and shut down Walker and the run game and force Darnold to replicate his performance from Championship Sunday?
It might sound like a good plan, but in that NFC title game, Seattle unveiled a bit different offensive attack with Darnold’s arm.
In 18 games through the divisional round, the Seahawks called for Darnold to drop back on just 28.7% of pass plays. However, 52.5% of their passes were drop backs against LA. Darnold attempted a season-high 18 drop-back passes in the conference championship game after having just five such throws the previous weekend. During the regular season, he averaged just over seven throws out of a drop back per game.
Against the Rams, Darnold completed 13 of 18 of his drop-back passes for 202 yards with two touchdowns for a 146.1 passer rating. Of those throws, Smith-Njigba caught four balls for 78 yards with a 14-yard touchdown, Cooper Kupp had four catches for 36 yards and a 13-yard TD and Rashid Shaheed had a 51-yard reception to set up a touchdown run by Walker.
Since the season opener, Smith-Njigba has been one of the league’s most dangerous receivers on drop-back pass plays, registering a burn percentage of 74.1 – the highest among the 33 receivers with at least 35 targets in such play concepts.
(minimum 35 targets, including playoffs)Containing Smith-Njigba could go a long way for the Patriots given his rapport with Darnold, who was the NFL’s most accurate passer and best at making difficult throws, per our data.
Smith-Njigba isn’t just Darnold’s favorite target – he’s his favorite by a wide margin. In Seattle’s 19 games this season, Darnold has thrown to JSN (178) more than twice as many times as he’s thrown to his next-favorite target, Kupp (81). In the regular season, Smith-Njigba was targeted 92 more times than Kupp – the largest gap between any team’s top two leaders in targets.
New England has a Pro Bowl cornerback in Christian Gonzalez, and he’ll likely see the most snaps lining up across from Smith-Njigba, though he won’t be the only defensive back who gets that assignment.
The Patriots like to move players around and they have no real weakness in their secondary. In fact, New England’s other two starting corners in Carlton Davis III and Marcus Jones grade out better in terms of coverage when the receiver they’re covering is targeted. Davis has an open-allowed percentage of 57.9 and a coverage rating of 81.1 (80-90 is considered really good, while 70-80 is considered average), which is ahead of Jones’ open-allowed percentage of 64.3 and coverage rating of 79.2, which is better than Gonzalez’s 68.0 and 77.5.
Davis’ open-allowed percentage ranks ninth among the 34 cornerbacks targeted at least 70 times, with the NFL average at 65.6.
Covering Smith-Njigba is easier said than done, but the Patriots have the personnel with their committee of competent cornerbacks. If New England can curb Smith-Njigba’s production and prevent Darnold from repeatedly feeding his Pro Bowl receiver, the Patriots would be in good shape to complete one of the most surprising turnarounds in NFL history and win the franchise’s first Super Bowl in seven years.
Seahawks’ Key to Victory vs. Patriots
Seattle’s smothering defense has made life miserable for nearly every offense it’s faced over the last two months and now sets its sights on a quarterback who has struggled to move the ball downfield – as well as protect the ball – this postseason.
New England stormed to its first AFC East title since 2019 behind a high-powered offense led by Maye, who enjoyed such an impressive jump in production from his rookie year into his second season that he has been named an MVP finalist.
The Pats scored more than 30 points in eight games and Maye led the NFL in completion percentage, yards per attempt and passer rating. He was also our pick for the NFL’s best deep-ball passer with a top-ranked 78.6% well-thrown rate on throws of 15 or more air yards.
Some experts, however, argued that Maye and New England beat up on a lot of inferior competition (the Patriots’ opponent winning percentage of .391 was the worst in the NFL), and that in the playoffs, they would have to beat the best teams.
Well, the Pats have since defeated teams ranked second, third and ninth in scoring defenses with a 16-3 win over the Los Angeles Chargers in a wild-card game, a 28-16 win over the Houston Texans in the divisional round and a 10-7 victory over the Denver Broncos in the AFC championship game.
Despite those wins, Maye and the offense haven’t looked all that impressive, even when taking into account the snowy conditions in the last two, and now they’re going up against the No. 1 scoring defense.
After recording a 72.0 completion percentage, 8.93 yards per attempt and a 113.5 passer rating in the regular season, Maye has a 55.8 completion percentage, an average of 6.92 yards per attempt and an 84.0 QB rating in three playoff games.
As we mentioned earlier, Maye was adept at throwing precision passes downfield in the regular season, but too many of his deep throws are falling to the ground in the playoffs. He’s only completed nine of 27 throws of 10+ yards and just 15 of those passes have been thrown to an open receiver.
(2025 NFL season)In the AFC championship game, Maye did complete a pair of deep balls to Mack Hollins – a throw with 18 air yards and a throw with 22 air yards coming in the snow – but his other eight completions traveled – brace yourself – 4, 4, 4, 3, 1, -1, -2 and -2 yards through the air.
Leading receiver Stefon Diggs hasn’t had much of an impact in the playoffs with only two of his 11 receptions going for 10+ yards after more than half of his receptions in the regular season (44 of 85) went for at least 10. He is averaging a mere 3.5 yards at the catch after averaging 7.7 yards at the catch in the regular season.
While it’s hard to take much stock from New England’s win at Denver considering the second half took place in a blizzard, Maye and the offense weren’t exactly firing on all cylinders when the skies were clear in the first half, averaging just 2.7 yards per play.
In three playoff games, the Pats have scored five offensive touchdowns while averaging 278.3 yards per game and 4.3 yards per play with a successful play rate of 35.9. Next up, a Seahawks team that has been shutting down anyone not named the Rams over the last two months.
Aside from its two games against Los Angeles since Week 13, Seattle is allowing an average of 7.3 points, 200.7 yards per game and 3.7 yards per play in its other six contests. In fact, the Seahawks’ -7.67 defensive TRACR heading into the Super Bowl is on pace to be the seventh-best we’ve recorded since the 1991 season.
The Seahawks defense ranked fifth in interceptions (18) and sixth in turnovers (25) and Maye has had trouble protecting the ball in the playoffs, throwing a pair of interceptions and fumbling six times – losing three.
All but one of Maye’s fumbles this postseason have come via a strip sack and his offensive line has struggled mightily to protect him.
After being sacked 47 times in the regular season (fourth most), Maye has been sacked five times in each of New England’s three playoff games. Only Joe Burrow has been sacked more in a single postseason, being brought down 19 times during the Cincinnati Bengals’ run to the Super Bowl in 2021.
Left tackle Will Campbell is responsible for three of the 15 sacks on Maye and he’s been routinely beaten by elite pass rushers in the playoffs. He has surrendered 13 pressures on Maye, registering a pressure-allowed rate of 16.0, while also recording an adjusted-sack rate of 3.7. This came after a solid rookie year in the regular season in which he had a pressure-allowed rate of 9.3 – better than the NFL average for left tackles of 11.4.
Seattle has achieved a pressure rate of 50.7 in the playoffs, and one thing about Macdonald’s defense is that pressure can come from anywhere. The Seahawks were one of only three teams to have four players with six or more sacks during the regular season, along with the Vikings and Broncos. In the playoffs, edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence has two sacks with defensive tackle Leonard Williams getting one.
If Seattle can exploit weaknesses on New England’s offensive line and prevent Maye from finding any rhythm with his receivers, the Seahawks will likely find themselves celebrating one of the most unlikely Super Bowl championships in NFL history.
(Win Super Bowl percentage as of Jan. 29)Super Bowl Prediction: Seahawks (51.3%)
We fired up the Opta supercomputer for one final time this season, and the Seahawks are predicted to beat the Patriots by a slim margin, winning 51.3% of our pregame simulations (as of Jan. 29).
This is a rematch of one of the most thrilling finales in NFL history in Super Bowl 49. New England escaped with a 28-24 victory, thanks to Malcolm Butler’s famous interception on Russell Wilson’s pass from the 1-yard line on second down with 26 seconds remaining.
These teams have met three times since that title game in Glendale, Ariz., on Feb. 1, 2015, with the Seahawks winning each.
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Early Super Bowl Predictions: Which Unlikely Contender Will Be Holding the Lombardi Trophy? Opta Analyst.
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