Photo Credit: Matt Slocum/AP
The 2025 Seattle Seahawks are Super Bowl champions. It wasn’t the prettiest game, and it wasn’t the most entertaining, but it was Seahawks football and they came out on top. It took 11 years, a long 11 years, but the Seahawks finally avenged the Malcolm Butler interception and beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 60.
While it wasn’t as much of a rout as Super Bowl 48 against the Denver Broncos, it was still dominant. I know it wasn’t a 43–8 win, but it easily could have gotten to that level.
The Seahawks got the ball first and drove into the red zone but had to settle for a field goal, the first of Jason Myers’ Super Bowl-record five on the night. On New England’s first drive, Derrick Hall got around Patriots left tackle Will Campbell and sacked Drake Maye for a 10-yard loss. Campbell, the fourth overall pick in the NFL Draft, had been a liability on the Patriots’ offensive line all season, and it showed immediately. He allowed 14 pressures—the most by any offensive lineman all season and it led to Drake Maye being sacked six times.
On Seattle’s next drive, backed up at their own 14-yard line and facing 3rd and 6, Sam Darnold somehow avoided being sacked. With pressure in his face, he lofted a pass to a wide open and I mean WIDE OPEN Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who had somehow gotten behind the Patriots’ secondary. Unfortunately, Darnold sailed the pass over his head for what would have been a touchdown. Still, it was only a 3–0 game.
The Patriots punted again on their ensuing drive following a Devon Witherspoon sack off the right slot, a blitz Mike Macdonald called early and often in the game. At that point, I think both teams knew it was going to be a defensive battle. On the Seahawks’ first drive of the second quarter, Klint Kubiak called a deep shot to Rashid Shaheed on the first play. Even though it was double coverage, Shaheed had a step on the defenders, but Christian Gonzalez made an extraordinary play to swat the ball down and save a potential touchdown.
Kenneth Walker had two huge runs on that drive, one for 30 yards and another for 29 to set up another Myers field goal. The Seahawks kicked one more field goal at the end of the quarter before Bad Bunny took the stage, after Gonzalez made another great play to save a touchdown, this time against Smith-Njigba. JSN had beaten him on a post route in the red zone, but Gonzalez recovered. Seattle went into the locker room up 9–0.
The Patriots punted for the seventh straight time on the opening drive of the third quarter, and the Seahawks added another field goal on the following drive to go up 12–0. Even though Seattle hadn’t found the end zone yet, you could start to feel the game slipping away from New England. The Patriots had nothing going offensively, and they couldn’t stop the run defensively, as Kenneth Walker had nearly 100 rushing yards in the first half.
Credit to the Patriots’ defense, though, they were putting a lot of pressure on Darnold, and it seemed their game plan was to take JSN out of the game, something no team had been able to do all year. JSN did briefly leave the game with a concussion, and Christian Gonzalez kept him in check for most of the night. Smith-Njigba had only four catches for 27 yards on the night.
The Seahawks’ defense needed a takeaway to put an exclamation point on their performance, and just as the third quarter was coming to a close, Derrick Hall got to Maye again, this time knocking the ball loose. Byron Murphy recovered, giving Seattle its first turnover of the game and great field position.
With the ball at the New England 16-yard line and the Patriots selling out to stop the run, Klint Kubiak dialed up a play-action pass. Darnold found AJ Barner wide open in the end zone for the game’s first touchdown, giving the Seahawks a 19–0 lead. It felt like the dagger.
But the Patriots responded with a three-play drive capped off by a 35-yard touchdown pass to Mack Hollins, cutting the lead to 12. They took just 57 seconds off the clock and still had all three timeouts, so it was far from over.
If there was time for the Seahawks to call another deep shot now was the time. With the Seahawks backed up on 3rd and 11 and the Patriots showing blitz, Darnold uncorked a deep ball to Shaheed, but just overthrew him. That gave Maye and the Patriots offense another chance with just over 10 minutes left.
On 2nd and 3, Maye floated a pass with no Patriot receiver within 10 yards, and Julian Love picked it off, setting Seattle up at the New England 38-yard line. The Patriots’ defense held once again, forcing another field goal, keeping it a two-possession game.
Then came the final dagger. Mike Macdonald called the same right-side slot blitz he had used all night. Devon Witherspoon knocked the ball out of Maye’s hand, and Uchenna Nwosu picked it off and ran it back for a touchdown, exorcising the demons of Super Bowls past.
The Patriots added a garbage-time touchdown, but it didn’t matter. The Seahawks were on top of the mountain once again, defeating the team that handed them their most heartbreaking loss. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and the Seahawks proved it.
The final score was 29–13. Kenneth Walker won Super Bowl MVP, becoming the first running back to win the award since Terrell Davis in Super Bowl 32. Walker finished with 135 rushing yards and 26 receiving yards, and you could easily argue he was the Seahawks’ playoff MVP, going over 100 scrimmage yards in every postseason game.
This was the Seahawks’ second Super Bowl title, and both wins were led by dominant defenses. Drake Maye was under siege all night, as the Patriots didn’t even cross the Seahawks’ 45-yard line until the fourth quarter.
One of the craziest stats about this team, they only trailed for 1 minute and 35 seconds the entire postseason, all of it coming in the NFC Championship Game. They also didn’t turn the ball over a single time in the postseason. This Seahawks team wasn’t expected to make it this far at the beginning of the season, but early on, you could tell there was something special brewing.
And you have to be happy for Sam Darnold, considering the journey he’s been through and how many teams had written him off. This win meant a lot to so many players, coaches, and 12s everywhere.
The Seattle Seahawks are champions once again.
