If you had to choose a defining moment in a Super Bowl of very few standout moments, it would probably be Uchenna Nwosu scooping up the ball in the wake of a Drake Maye sack to put the cherry on top of a Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl win that may not necessarily live long in the memory.
As it happened, the most unlikely of Super Bowls produced the most likely of outcomes, as Seattle torched the Patriots 29-13, a scoreline that might not even reflect the gulf between the teams. The game followed two weeks in which both sides were given a chance to make their case to win the biggest game of all, having entered the campaign without even a mention of being in this position.
Seattle’s argument was that they were simply a better team in all three phases, the NFC champions had vanquished far more challenging foes, and, despite going against modern NFL team-building by being a defence-first outfit, they had more than enough credentials to back them up as big favourites, and their reclamation project quarterback, Sam Darnold, had flourished to turn them into a true contender.
On the way to their AFC championship the New England Patriots had enjoyed a friendly schedule, it formed much of the debate between their quarterback Drake Maye and the Rams passer Matthew Stafford, who would eventually win out, for the regular season MVP award.
But New England’s strong defensive unit complemented their ascendant quarterback, despite falling a vote or two short of the landmark prize.“You talk about a group of guys who battle every day, who believe in each other, believe in their coach,” star cornerback Devon Witherspoon remarked afterwards. “I mean, you can’t describe this group no better. It’s just a one-of-a kind feeling.”
While the modest Darnold rightfully switched focus away from his own redemption arc, back to the more imposing side of the football. “It’s unbelievable. I’m so proud of our guys. our defense, I mean I can’t say enough good things about our defense, our special teams. I know we won the Super Bowl, but we could’ve been a little better on offense, but I don’t care about that right now. It’s an unbelievable feeling.”
When we look back at this trouncing in Santa Clara, it might be for the best that the NFL had not crowned Maye as the league’s newest superstar mere days before he struggled to move the ball in the biggest game of his life, only scoring the Pats’ first touchdown in the fourth quarter when the game already seemed far beyond an overmatched New England team.
Unfortunately, one of the realities of football at this level is that you have to be battle-tested. In a season where so many of the established elite fell early, first Patrick Mahomes to a season-ending injury, then Lamar Jackson to niggling knocks and then Josh Allen to a substandard roster, the path was open for a surprise Super Bowl winner. As it happened, the lack of star QBs only served to highlight the importance of roster depth and strength.
Maye got to the Super Bowl by the skin of his teeth as the Pats’ offense laboured through the post-season, while Seattle had beaten the LA Rams and San Francisco 49ers, not only divisional foes but two of the stronger all-around teams in the game. Indeed, the Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan lauded Seattle’s defense as one of just two, alongside the Texans, who could win the Super Bowl almost without the help of their offense.
As the Patriots struggled to get anything going against a defensive unit coached to perfection by Mike Macdonald, Darnold didn’t even need to provide an explosive play to increase Seattle’s lead. Chipping away with field goals was not necessarily the entertainment America wanted in the biggest entertainment event of the year, and the same could probably be said for Bad Bunny, but both got the job done in the light of gritty but ultimately helpless opposition.
As the clock wound into the fourth quarter and the Seahawks throttled New England, Maye needed to find an answer. The Patriots had to score a touchdown.
Maye’s pass only found Seahawk hands and the game, as a spectacle at least, was over.
When Nwosu ran the ball in a few minutes later to lend some mathematical certainty to the result, it was more in celebration than competition, but a Seahawks defender taking home the points probably made more sense in a matchup that neutrals won’t have loved, but that reminds us how the orthodoxy of NFL decision-making is always ready to be challenged.
“This has been one of the most brilliant performances I have ever seen in the National Football League,” NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth remarked, almost drooling at their brilliance. “This defensive performance is as good as I’ve seen.”
For years now, it has felt like you couldn’t possibly compete if you didn’t draft an elite QB prospect and blow teams away with explosive offense. Two years ago, the Seahawks rebuilt on the fly with a defensive head coach, they added a reclamation project at quarterback less than a year ago and now they are the world champions.
As Nwosu ran the ball in and Seattle’s overwhelming fan army celebrated inside Levi’s Stadium, the NFL was reminded there is more than one way to do this.
The Seahawks did it their way.
