Who could make the unforgettable, ill-timed mistake that costs his team the Super Bowl title? We’re breaking down the top candidates for both the Patriots and Seahawks.
The Super Bowl is built for heroism.
But for every Malcolm Butler, there’s a Russell Wilson who threw a pass he shouldn’t have. For every game-winning play, there’s a Buffalo Bills kicker waiting to line up a key field goal.
This story is not about the heroes but about the prospective goats of the Super Bowl – the players who look most likely to cost their team everything with an ill-timed mistake.
Who could be that person when the New England Patriots take on the Seattle Seahawks? Here are the best candidates, with some help from Opta data to make the case.
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2 days ago Ethan KrugerLT Will Campbell, New England Patriots
In these playoffs, 42% of the Patriots’ offensive plays have gone for zero or negative yards. The only three teams to do worse than that were eliminated in the wild-card round.
Drake Maye has been sacked on a shocking 16.1% of his drop backs, a rate that would be dead last in the NFL by more than five percentage points if maintained over a full season. Maye has fumbled six times, five of those on sacks (and one more on a carry up the middle against the Houston Texans).
The fact that the Patriots got through the entire AFC playoffs while flirting with disaster that often is a genuine marvel, and I wouldn’t sit here and claim that it’s “not sustainable.” Anything can happen in one game, including the Patriots winning again while playing fast and loose with the ball.
But New England would be well served to finally cut it out.
Maye should take better care of the ball, but any QB who repeatedly gets sacked from his blind side will be at risk of fumbling. So the focus falls to the man protecting that blind side: rookie left tackle Will Campbell, the No. 4 overall pick in April’s draft.
Campbell is a substantial talent and has a solid 84.1 pass-block rating, but he’s had a tough first postseason. After giving up a 9.2% pressure rate (better than the league average of 10.9%) during the regular season, Campbell has given up an alarming 16.0% pressure rate in the playoffs and has been the man chiefly responsible for getting Maye crunched.
The Seattle defense was third in the NFL with a 53.2% pressure rate and will provide a major challenge again. It doesn’t take much imagination to see Campbell causing the Pats’ downfall in Santa Clara.
CB Josh Jobe, Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks have a sticky secondary. The team’s 46.8% burn rate allowed ranked eighth in the NFL. But the Seahawks have had problems in coverage in their two playoff wins, letting up a 55.0% burn rate as their defensive backs have struggled to keep up with shifty pass catchers.
Star cornerback Riq Woolen had a bad game against the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC championship, but Jobe, playing across the formation, has been the more typical problem for Seattle’s back end.
Jobe’s 67.8 coverage rating doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence (60-70 is considered below average). He gave up a 54.1% burn rate in the regular season (compared to Woolen’s standout 33.3%) and was, in general, the man opposing QBs preferred to target. (His 20.3% target rate in coverage was the highest among Seahawks defensive backs.)
The Seahawks have enough talent around Jobe – especially Woolen and the great Devon Witherspoon – that Maye figures to look his way in big spots in this game. The Patriots do not have a Jaxon Smith-Njigba at wideout, but they’ll likely look to do damage against Woolen with Kayshon Boutte, Stefon Diggs or Mack Hollins.
He’s probably their best bet to pick on.
QB Drake Maye, New England Patriots/Sam Darnold, Seattle Seahawks
No list of potential Super Bowl ruiners would be complete without the quarterbacks, so let’s get into what could go wrong under center.
Maye is an accurate QB, but not as much as Darnold, whose 86.9% well-thrown rate led the NFL. His 2.83-second average time to throw is a bit longer than the league average, and Maye takes sacks on 18.2% of his pressured drop backs – higher than the 14.6% league-wide rate for QBs with at least 50 attempts in the regular season.
Darnold takes sacks on just 11.4% of his pressured drop backs, giving his offensive linemen more margin for error than Maye has given Campbell and company.
Either QB could throw an important interception, of course. But Maye is the better bet to throw a cookie to the opposing defense. Darnold hasn’t thrown a pass that has been deemed “pickable” in the Seahawks’ two playoff games. Maye has only thrown two in three games.
But as a matter of both avoiding sacks and fumbles and not throwing the ball to the other team, Darnold has the on-paper advantage.
OL Anthony Bradford/Grey Zabel, Seattle Seahawks
Seattle’s offensive line is solid. The Seahawks faced the second-highest blitz rate in the league (42.1%) and still only surrendered a league-average pressure rate of 46.6%.
Not everything’s peaches and cream, though.
For one thing, the get-open-immediately skills of Smith-Njigba and Darnold’s ability to avoid sacks certainly helped the offensive line look better. For another thing, the Seahawks’ run-blocking left a lot to be desired.
The unit allowed a run disruption – a filled gap changing the runner’s path – on 78.0% of the team’s carries. That’s a few percentage points worse than league average, and it led to Seattle’s rushing success rate and yards per carry both falling at average or slightly below.
Bradford and left guard Gray Zabel were the underperformers here, each allowing a run disruption on about 20% of their run-blocking reps. Zabel’s 70.6 run-block rating isn’t great (barely out of the below-average range), while Bradford’s 77.0 rating is at least solidly average.
You could easily imagine one of New England’s mauling defensive tackles decisively winning the run-game matchup against either of these two.
K Andy Borregales, New England Patriots
Borregales had a respectable rookie season after the Patriots took him in the sixth round in April. But he’s still green, and Mike Vrabel did his best to keep Borregales out of the most difficult situations.
New England only tried four 50-plus yard kicks in the regular season, one of the lowest marks in the NFL. Borregales made all of those but missed his one long one in the playoffs, albeit not an attempt we’ll hold against him, as it came from 63 yards in bad weather as the first half was expiring.
If the game comes down to a long kick or two, you’d probably feel better about Seattle’s Josh Myers, who’s 9 for 12 from 50-plus.
Alex Kirshner is the co-host of the popular Split Zone Duo podcast. Follow along on Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook and X for more.
Seahawks vs. Patriots: The Players Most Likely to Cost Their Teams the Super Bowl Opta Analyst.
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