Super Bowl Preview w/Washington Post Sports Obit
Last Call for Football
Super Bowl LX (60) is a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX (49) that saw Patriot CB Malcolm Butler intercept Seahawk QB Russell Wilson at the goal line to preserve a 28-24 New England victory. The Patriots went on to three of the next four Super Bowls, winning two of them. The Seahawks haven’t been back since.
According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame website, this will be the sixth Super Bowl rematch with the winner of the first game winning four of the last five matchups. A win Sunday for New England would break a tie for most franchise Super Bowl wins of six with the Pittsburgh Steelers. A win for Seattle would move them to two wins along with the Baltimore Ravens, Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins, Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Matchups, Notes and Nuggets:
Intriguing Quarterback Matchup
Seahawk QB Sam Darnold was the third overall pick in the 2018 draft and preceded to stack up six awful seasons with the New York Jets, Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers. Seemingly out of nowhere, he led the Minnesota Vikings to 14 wins last year and the Seahawks to 14 wins this year making him only the second quarterback to win 14 games in consecutive seasons (Tom Brady is the other). He flamed out late in the regular season and the playoffs last year so some still wonder if the clock will soon strike midnight on this Cinderella story.
Patriot QB Drake Maye was the third overall pick in the 2024 draft and has compiled a 17-12 record since taking over as the starter in week six last year, with 14 of those wins this year. He has been carried by the defense since the playoffs started completing only 55.8% of his passes and averaging a paltry 177.7 passing yards per game. Mike Jones of The Athletic has more on this and other matchups in his report from Feb. 1.
Close WR/CB Matchup
Chris Cwik of Yahoo!Sports likes the matchup between Patriot CB Christian Gonzalez and Seahawk WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Both were drafted in the first round of the 2023 draft. Cwik highlights that Gonzalez was selected to the Pro Bowl this year and Smith-Njigba was named first-team All-Pro after leading the league in receiving yards this year. Beyond those two, Seattle has the league’s ninth best passing attack and New England has the league’s ninth best passing defense – going to be tight out there.
Point Differential Comparison
The Seahawks led the NFL in point differential (+191) this year, but the Patriots were a close third (+170), two points behind the Los Angeles Rams. Both of these teams are obviously rated in the top five for points scored and points allowed, so turnovers will be key. The Patriots recovered nine fumbles while the Seahawks recovered seven, but the Seahawks snagged 18 interceptions and the Patriots only 10.
Franchise Stability
Seattle had their short, but excellent run of the early 2000-teens, but that cast of coach Pete Carroll, QB Russell Wilson and the Legion of Boom defense are all gone, while GM John Schneider remains. We all know about New England’s two decades of glory, but Bill Belichick and Tom Brady are both gone, yet owner Bob Kraft remains with his team on the verge of another happy ending. Interestingly, both Schneider and Patriot GM Eliot Wolf honed their management craft with the Green Bay Packers, according to Scott Venci of the Green Bay Press Gazette.
Expert Predictions
Nate Davis of the USA Today provided the expert predictions from his publication. All six picked the Seahawks with five of them predicting a “one score” game. Two predicted Darnold as the game MVP, two chose Smith-Njigba with LB Ernest Jones IV and RB Kenneth Walker III each received a vote.
HOTPO Key to the Game
As mentioned earlier, turnovers will be key, but that is obvious – always is key. Both quarterbacks are good, but no one would be totally surprised if one of them had an off day because both teams have incredible defenses. The HOTPO thinks the running games will decide this Super Bowl.
New England gained the sixth most rushing yards (2,191) this year, while Seattle gained the 11th most (2,096) – virtually equal. These teams are also dead even on yards before contact on a running back rush at 1.2 yards and both team defenses allow around 100 yards a game with Seattle at 91 and New England at 101. It will come down to the individual running backs.
Walker led the Seahawks in yards (1,027) this year with RB Zach Charbonnet gaining 730 yards, but Charbonnet tore his left ACL in the Divisional Round of the playoffs. Seattle doesn’t have a legitimate backup to fill that #2 role as no other running back on the team ran for 100 yards during the regular season. Walker can break a long one as he had five games this year in which he gained 20 or more yards on a carry.
For New England, RB TreVeyon Henderson gained 911 yards, RB Rhamondre Stevenson gained 603 and – lookout – Maye gained 450. Henderson has runs of 69 and 65 yards, while Stevenson has six games in which he had a run of greater than 20 yards, including a 56-yarder against Miami in early December. Henderson is a legitimate “home run” threat, Stevenson is a solid #2 and Maye is a dangerous wild card when things get off schedule.
Body of work wise, these are two deserving Super Bowl teams that are evenly matched. The Patriots have more weapons in the running game, though. First team to 100 yards rushing, while minimizing turnovers, takes this Super Bowl.
Get with some friends. Enjoy your snacks and beverages. And get to work on time Monday.
Last call for football. Enjoy the game.
Good Night, Sweet Prince
This week the Washington Post eliminated its sports section, along with about a third of the paper’s overall staff and reporters. It was clear that the WaPo Sports was on its death bed. This was just a pulling of the plug.
First, the Sports page was relegated to page seven of the second section between the Style and Metro sections. Reports from the games of the previous day began disappearing. And in the last week of January here were some of their lead stories:
- George Steinbrenner resetting U.S. Olympic goals for the 1988 Winter Olympics
- ACL tears in the WNBA
- How to talk to your child after a youth sports game
- The effect of the show “Heated Rivalry” on LGBTQ+ hockey fans and culture
The above content is evergreen dog poop that doesn’t deserve space in a sports section for a city and region with all the major sports and numerous college teams. Maybe on the slowest of news days you could squeeze in the Steinbrenner or WNBA articles. Youth sports advice and television show reviews belong in some other section.
I delivered the Indianapolis Star every morning for six years as a kid. The Washington Post has been my hometown newspaper for around 15 years – home delivery, no less. I love putting down the phone, closing the laptop and reading as a tactile function. To me, this is a significant loss.
This is not new, however, just the advancing extinction of news as old people used to know it. In the 2025 “State of Local News” report, the Local News Initiative reported: “Almost 40% of all local U.S. newspapers have vanished, leaving 50 million Americans with limited or no access to a reliable source of local news. This trend continues to impact the media industry and audiences nationwide.” People now get their “news” from unedited, unchecked and incredibly biased “sources” with questionable ethical ideologies.
While I lose my little security blanket of sports coverage in print, we are all losing out on the facts – the truth – of what is happening in our federal, state and municipal governments. I would also submit that we are evolving backward toward a simplistic, oral exchange of important data as our desire for hard-to-understand details decreases and our attention spans diminish at an exceeding rate. Maybe the HOTPO needs to expand its focus.
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