Super Bowl LX Recap: Seahawks ride dominant defense to 29-13 win over Patriots, franchise's second title

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Look at the epic end of the un-contained story of The Witches of Oz. Buy or buy? Wicked for good now. I'm taking you to see The Wizard. There's no going back. So what you also look, Prime Video. Here you look at everything. Prime is a surprise, except to buy or buy. In-house can be advertised 18+. All right, all right. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mayes. I'm recording this on the concourse on the 200 level of Levi's Stadium. We just wrapped up our Super Bowl 60 recap. Just an ass kicking from the Seattle Seahawks. My God, they were the best team in the NFL. I think for most of this season, they were the best defense in the NFL for most of this season. And they really showed us that over the course of this game. Patriots had absolutely no answers. We saw the reasons that Mike McDonald and this group are really a truly special team and unit overall. Big game from Kenneth Walker was about to get paid a lot of money and really just the type of performance from the Seattle Seahawks that we probably should have expected, given what they were throughout this entire season. We dug into all of it. What we saw from Seattle, how they got to this moment, what this means for Mike McDonald and John Schneider, what was really special about that Seahawks defense and all the ways that we saw it tonight. Dug into all of that with me, Derek Klassen and Dave Hellman. So let's get to it right now. Coming to you guys live from Levi's stadium after Superbowl 60. This is the athletic football show. Derek, I felt like the Seattle Seahawks were the best team in football for most of this season. I think they absolutely were that over the second half of the season coming into this game. I felt like they were the substantially better team. And I think they showed us that tonight, to say the least. There's kind of a comfort in them doing it in the exact way that we all thought they would, which is the defense chokes them out. You get a couple of good plays from the offense. Kenneth Walker has a really big game. Obviously, he ends up winning MVP. Yeah, Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker, which. By the way, imagine saying that as recently as like eight weeks ago. He would do that. And so there was kind of a beautiful for such a weird season. I mean, we talked about that a million times, right? For such a bizarre season, for the final game to end exactly how you thought it would is actually kind of a nice, like comforting tone to end it on. The only thing missing from this performance was a truly explosive JSN play. Yeah. And for the Seahawks to do this without getting that, like, and JSN left the game for a little bit. I think he was in concussion protocol. Even before that happened, it was. But the Patriots to limit him and limit the Seahawks passing game, Sam Darnold was under a fair amount of duress during the competitive portion of this game. For the Patriots to get all of that right and the Seahawks still authored a total beatdown, what a way to cap this thing off and what a performance by this defense. I was worried about how the Patriots are going to move the ball in this game. I just didn't think they had that many pathways to do it, considering what their offense had looked like in the playoffs and how dominant Seattle's defense was. Patriots did nothing offensively for their first three playoff games. And I know there was some weather involved, but now you're playing against arguably the best defense of all the ones you're going to see in the postseason. And they got dismantled. And obviously, the final box score is going to look a lot different than how the game felt. I looked at the stats for the first three quarters of the game. For the first three quarters, Drake May was eight of 18 for 60 yards. but the Patriots only had 21 passing yards because of all the sacks that you throw. How many did he have by then? It was probably five, right? Five sacks. It was five sacks. It was eight of 18 for 21 passing yards. He had 60 yards total. On a team level, the Patriots threw three quarters in this game. If you just want a sense of how dominant Seattle's defense was, negative .62 EPA per play, according to NextGen by the Patriots. For some context, that is the 10th worst performance through three quarters of this entire season. by any team, regular or postseason. Some of the other games involved here, Jake Browning against the Vikings in week three, Max Brosmer against the Seahawks, J.J. McCarthy's terrible three quarters against the Bears in week one, a Raiders game against the Chiefs, Shadur Sanders against the Bears, the Dolphins week one blowout against the Colts, and two Jets games. And it felt exactly like that, dude. It was an ass kicking. What worked for the Patriots today? I mean, absolutely nothing. Ramondre Stevenson takes a swing slips a Julian love tackle and picks up more yards yeah it was equal it was Seahawks mistakes not tackling in space the first two drives was the only good thing that happened and Drake had a couple deep digs over the middle where he just made a great throw the Mac Hollins touchdown was a great throw and a better catch but it was either just like Herculean efforts or lucking into some shit and everything else just had no chance from the word go they clearly didn't have pitches and they didn't know what pitches they wanted to go to I mean, like they hit the early one to Ramondre Stevenson where, you know, they got him out and empty. They reload and they push him back out and they kind of make a tough tackling angle for Julian Love and he's not able to make it. And then it felt like for the next two or three drives, they just kept spamming these throws in the flat. They were like, oh, that one worked. Maybe we can get another one. And they never really found anything that went for anything more than like three or four yards. There was it just felt like they got stuck in that mud. And then in the second half, like Travion Henderson, they like just start spamming him, spamming him, spamming him. But they had the reverse that they had. Jet handoffs to Trayvon Henderson, or you know, you're, you're grassing for straw. They were like, man, we do need explosives really bad. And that felt like you're digging a little bit too at the bottom of the barrel this early in the game to build off what Robert said. Drake may officially now, even with garbage time, Drake may among qualified passers has the highest quarterback pressure rate in a Superbowl in the next gen era, 52.8%. I think of the like the benchmark for a quarterback being under duress recently in my brain is Mahomes against the Bucks in 2020. He's 12 points higher than that. He ties Mahomes for the second most sacks in a Super Bowl in history. I think part of the reason is that the past there were a lot of pressures in this game. But I think part of the reason that there were so many pressures in this game is that he was hanging on to the ball for as long as he was. Overall, the Seahawks, let me tally him up right now. three, five, seven, eight, nine, 10 quick pressures, which is a lot in a single game, but you just felt the pocket collapsing so often because there was nowhere to go with the ball. That was part of the problem. And so when I look at the Seahawks dominance in this game, to me, it is a very real reflection of what makes the Seahawks truly like a perfect modern defense. They're going to play in all of those shells and all of those two high looks on early downs. The Patriots could not run the ball, no matter what sort of look Seattle was giving them. I think they had a 30% rushing success rate. New England did in the first half, 29.2. And even that, like anecdotally felt like the first two drives and then it kind of just died after that. They did nothing. And so other than that, on a lot of defined passing situations, especially early in the game, you felt where Mike McDonald can really cook with some of those blitzes. I mean, the first one, the Patriots' first drive, the Seahawks are lined up, cover zero look, everyone's mugged up on the line of scrimmage, they're in dime. Em and Worry and Spoon come off the edges with both defensive tackles dropping, which he loves to do. That's like Mike McDonald's favorite third down call. He loves that pressure. And so they do that on the first third down of the game. The second third down of the game, third and 15 after two negative plays for the Patriots, another funky pressure where Spoon comes from depth through the B gap. And so you have the pressure stuff on third down that Mike McDonald is really good at. And then they don't need to blitz all the time. Like the fact that so consistently, especially in the second half, they were just crushing the pocket and getting there with four. It's a real representation to me. this game and this performance from Seattle of what has made them so special. And I think that we can use that as a jumping off point to just talk about how special this team really is and what they represent. You know, I think coming into the year, a lot of us believed there was like a trio of teams, in my opinion, like three or four teams. It was to me, it was Seattle, Houston, Denver. Maybe you throw like Minnesota in there. And I think the refrain that we kept coming back to in the offseason was these are the teams that have a chance to be the best defense in the league. I don't know who will be, but these are the teams that have a chance. And so I think we did have that level of collective enthusiasm for what Seattle's defense could be. And then they were even better than we ever could have imagined. And it's all that stuff I'm talking about, Dave, all those layers to it. But then you add in just the depth and variety and the quality of the personnel. And you get to a place where this is a very special defense. And they showed it in the biggest moment possible. The best part for me, and it's been all season long, right? And we've said it all year. It just feels like there's 13, 14 guys on the field. And it feels like they go 18 or 19 deep in terms of guys that you're comfortable playing. I mean, Derek, we were talking about this before we went on. He did not win. Kenneth Walker had a phenomenal game. He had the big explosives in the first half helped out a lot. I would have voted for Derek Hall to win Super Bowl MVP if I had had a vote. to have two sacks and the strip that really turned this into a laugher. And he's like your four-man rush, by the way. He's your third or fourth edge. Like you could say third if you wanted to be nice, but your fourth edge has that sort of game on top of Byron Murphy delivering the way that you're used to him doing. And Devin Witherspoon was a freak in this game. But I did want to shout out, you mentioned that third and 15 sack early in the game. Josh Jobe. I know he got away with kind of punching a guy here in the second half of the game, but Josh Job was everywhere and he makes a tackle for loss on Ramondre Stevenson. That puts them in a third in a row. They had two negative plays to set up that third and 15 on the first drive. Your role players are setting up third and longs that are letting Mike McDonald do this devious shit. It is. It is incredibly fun to watch. And it's so impressive when, you know, you could go down. You list off like the six or seven stars and they all played well. Don't get me wrong. but like you didn't get that vintage, like you didn't get that DeMarcus Lawrence game that we saw so many times this season tonight. It was Uchenna Nwosu instead. It's his turn to have a picks or a fumble six. It's just, they never stop. And there are so many of them. And Joe made one really important play to me. That was like, when we came into the game, I think we were talking a lot about like, okay, if Seattle is going to struggle a little bit in this game, maybe they can catch some of these backside, the one-on-one balls. There was a third down right out of the half where new England is in three by one. they're always in three by one and to that trip side seattle has demarcus lawrence on the outside and they've got uchenna nwosu like kind of in the b gap beside him they send lawrence nwosu like pops out to cut off any of those little short slants coming from the trip side may's like okay i get that i'll go back and throw my one-on-one on the back side and job is just all over it makes a great breakup and that's just like those were the exact place seattle needed to go from like having a good performance today to having a truly like what in spirit was a shutout kind of day the i remember just kind of going through mike mcdonald's time in our collective consciousness he's obviously the coordinator in baltimore 22 and 23 and i think that the moment i would go back to to kind of point to the start of this path in my opinion to him kind of asserting himself as like a really special kind of all-time defensive coach which he is we talked about this coming into the game There aren't that many defensive minded, defensive first play calling head coaches that get to this point. And he has driven his team to this point in part because he is a really special defensive play caller and defensive coach But I go back to a game that happened right here on Christmas in 2023 when they played against that version of the Niners When the Niners were this historically dominant offense. And watching what Mike McDonald did to the Niners that night, they were good all year. They were the best defense in football. But that was kind of one of those moments where he's really announcing himself as something different. I remember very specifically that double corner cats play they had with the tipped ball interception. I think it was interception on the play. And you just think about that call in that moment. And we talk about it all year. The layers of talent and depth on the defense are incredible. The fact that your fourth edge rusher, Derek Hall, could potentially be the MVP, that says a lot. But we also are dealing with like a really special once in a generation, I think, kind of defensive coach potentially. and the play that i go back to the one where uh they have the the derrick hall strip sack i pointed this out to you in real time it's third and five late in the game the patriots are in a one by three with hunter henry is the number one receiver amen warry has walked out over him and so as an offense as a quarterback you're thinking that's telling me i get man coverage i assume that's what i'm gonna get they send i believe it was digs in motion quickly and job was job was out over him He goes in motion with digs. Another signal. It's man, man, man. Ball is snapped. They drop out into cover two. And Derek Hall gets a strip sack. Ball game over. And you just see those moments over and over and over again with Mike McDonald where you'd have this perfect confluence of the right call, the right moment with the right players, and that was Seattle's defense the entire year. Which I laughed. I had to go look it up while you were talking because you mentioned a third down play by Josh Jobe coming out of the half. And I was like, oh, I know the one. And you had a different one. Because like five minutes later, it's third down. Patriots are approaching the logo, trying to get something going. It's 12-0. And it was when May ripped the slant to Keyshawn Booty. And Job is there in coverage. He has to try to lead him, and he makes a tough throw. Booty doesn't come down with it. And while he's going down, Ernest Jones just dips a shoulder into his rib cage and crushes his windpipe. And that's Seattle in a nutshell. Even that play, that's a simulated pressure. where Mafe, they try to get something in the flat, and boy, Mafe drops off of it fast to the flat, takes that away, and then Drake has to fit that slant into a really tight window that Ernest Jones is squeezing. And I love that, too, because, again, I talked about it coming into the week. So much of what New England does is three by one, and they're trying to throw that backside stuff. And so Ernest Jones is the weak hook to that side when he pops off. But he, like, flies off the line so far to the trip side initially, and so Drake's probably like, good, I've got the window to throw my one-on-one. and then he it obviously he closes it joe had it closed kind of by himself anyway even if that didn't happen like it's just the way that those guys collectively play together and you can do these little manipulations on plays it's just it is a special one-of-a-kind unit and i think the last play i want to mention in that exact vein the julian love interception we were watching it back after it happened and you watch the play unfold and i think it's cover six so like you have joe is to that side where julian love is and it looks like they're playing cover two and then you watch the way the play unfolds and it's the play side safety the front side safety i think it was kobe bryant clamps down on the dig and then the way that witherspoon plays it on that play he like melts back under the underneath route and loves able to play over the top of it it's just gorgeous like it's just like the exact way that you would teach that coverage in that moment against those routes and again that was seattle's defense the entire year and just kind of talking to some of the personalities and the players involved on that team i feel like i could talk about it now because they won the Super Bowl. But I remember having a conversation with Mike McDonald at the BMAC before the season started. And we were just talking about this team and the makeup of this team and some of the personalities on this team. And we were talking about like where the alphas are going to come from. And I was talking, I was asking about the defense and I was like, who would you start with? Like, who are the guys that you feel like are tone setters for you in the way that you want to play? And he was like, spoon. He's like, spoon is kind of just mentality wise. Like that, that it would be the guy. And so for spoon to have the game that he did in the moments that he did, I think really speaks to what the Seahawks offense thought they were going to be coming. The defense thought they were going to be coming in the season, what they eventually were. And then on offense, he was kind of like, we need those guys offensively. We need to find them, right? The offense wasn't nearly as far along. They weren't as established. It was a bigger question mark. And I said, all right, but right now, who would you say is one of those guys? And the first name that came out of his mouth was AJ Barner dog. And so the fact that spoon and AJ Barner were the two guys on that side of the ball that kind of had like the biggest season changing like when they play the America's game like those are two of the plays that we're going to start with that goes back to the beginning of Seattle season and who they thought their guys would be in like those crunch time moments and like such a cool part of that is and there are other leaders on this team do you know they bring into Marcus Lawrence under Williams been there a couple years but those two guys you just mentioned are what like 23 24 25 years old those are young the bedrock of talent that they've drafted in in seattle 100 i really hate like the the minute the game is over you start trying to project it into the future and i don't i don't want to do that while they're still confetti on the field but he's literally just landed on me before we started here i mean outside of outside of reek woolen what are you worried about the seahawks not having over the foreseeable future and mike mcdonald is such an important piece of that and he's not going anywhere That is the beauty of hitting on a play calling savant. So like you've got the guy who has established this culture and this scheme and has everybody thinking with with a hive mind. And you've got like arguably one important player. Walker, I guess, is another one worth mentioning. But if if the running back is the guy you're worried about replacing, typically that's a pretty good spot to be. No offense to him. The other moment I remember from that conversation with Mike before the season started, we were just talking about the difference in calling a defense in year one versus the difference in calling a defense in year two. And he was kind of telling me about the process in Baltimore and what felt different the second time around. And he said, when you're doing it for the first time, you're calling a defense like structurally. Right. It's like I'm making this call because I understand that structurally it's the right thing to do in this situation, given what I think the offense is going to do. When you do it in year two, you start calling the defense through the players. You start weaponizing them very specifically based on what they can do well. And so you go from more of a risk-averse, let's prevent big plays mindset to a now we are the aggressor mindset. And those spoon blitzes and that last one that OSE scores a touchdown on, that's the first thing I thought of where it's like you're weaponizing your guys here. You understand exactly how to call the defense through the players rather than through the scheme. And for them to get to that place by the Super Bowl and for them to feel like that sort of unit. Again, I just think it speaks to that transition from what the Seahawks defense was last year to what they were this year. And it's such we talked about this again during the week. It's like he had such a clear vision for what kinds of players he wanted for that. And obviously, you know, he wasn't there when they drafted Spoon. He kind of preceded them. But like bring in Ernest Jones and like drafting Byron Murphy and bring into Marcus Lawrence, Guys who clearly like the defense only works because we can only be light in the box because we have these long guys on the edge. We can only be light in the box because we can, you know, stunt Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy everywhere. We can only be light in the box because Ernest Jones is going to fix it and he can be a helpful piece in coverage anyway. Like he's just to have all of that. And then even the small thing I love with all the spoon blitzes, some teams will love to bring their nickel. It's it's shocking to me how it's not shocking because it's actually not shocking given how he plays. how often they fire Witherspoon inside of the tackle. Like throwing him at guards and like at in the A gap and B gap is like most Nichols are not prepared to do that. But Devin Witherspoon is a different kind of guy. He's so fast and he timed it so well tonight. It was insane. We were joking about it because it was the first it was the first blitz of the night where they dropped the D tackles and you were pointing that out to me. And I was like, how are you watching anything but Devin Witherspoon and how quickly he got to the quarterback? That's all I could see. All right, before we move on, we're going to take a quick break. Stay informed and stay ahead with a Think Ahead podcast from London Business School. Now in the book. Redefining Talent, one conversation at a time. Those have been kind of the things that push them over the top. I'm just going to go back through the top 100 picks that the Seahawks have made since 2022. Charles Cross, Boye Mafé, Kenneth Walker III, Abe Lucas, Devin Witherspoon, Jackson Smith and Jigba, Derek Hall, Zach Charbonnet, Byron Murphy, Christian Haynes, Gray Zabel, Nick Emanwari, Elijah Arroyo, Jalen Milrow. Elijah Arroyo was hurt for a good chunk of this year. Christian Haynes eventually lost that job as the right guard. every single other guy on that team is like a very real contributor to what this team is several of them got worthwhile extensions others are going to be drafted are going to be compensated very well in free agency this year like Kenneth Walker it's a heater like it is an absolute heater and it's hilarious when you compare it to the previous five seven years to Seahawks drafting like it's just that that hot streak and what they've been able to do in building the foundation of this team in-house through those draft picks. That is the reason they're here right now. Maybe the 10th best guy on that list, you and I just tried to make the case was the MVP of the game, Derek Hall. Like, it's insane the depth they have now. I have a really vivid memory from like the last time they were this team, 2013, 2014, where, you know, when a team is this good, everybody's trying to bite that off, whether it's the coaches or like the archetype of player you're looking for. We've talked a lot about how people are going to be looking for Nickham and Worry in the draft. I just remember having this thought of, oh sure it's all so simple we'll just find the best third round quarterback ever a hall of famer to be like the archetype of your defense in the fifth round we'll find cam chancellor on day three two bobby wagner at pick 50 whatever is going to be still playing and winning awards today by the way i was just like yeah it's not that easy guys and obviously the seahawks did have a little bit of a dip where they weren't drafting as well but john schneider has had a run here it's probably too soon to compare them to some of those guys like sherm and and earl thomas and cam but like it is a heater like that where you have just found at every level of the draft all pro pro bowl amazing caliber players to do that twice over the course of a career is pretty incredible it's very rare i mean like howie roseman's really the only guy in the modern era to have done that where it's like a completely different collection of players and i think that you know sometimes it can be a little bit misleading like you have the quarterback carryover from like when the rams won the super Bowl in 2021 to right now, but like that team has really changed over. If they had done it, we could have a similar conversation outside of the Super Bowl, but to do it with completely different teams, completely different collections of players and to have the defense be this good and kind of resemble those Legion of Boom teams and the quality is incredibly impressive and I think it really does speak to what John Schneider has been able to do And I honestly think among all the people involved in this game, like Mike McDonald absolutely did. But like this changes the way that we'll talk about John Schneider forever to have done this a second time to this degree. His record was tainted up until like, like even as recently as like, honestly, like I think we loved how like the Gino revival and I think maybe that bought him a little bit of credit, But I think with as poorly as 2024 had gone, it was like, what is John Snyder really done in the last, you know, eight years or whatever it had been getting this to like really get it this quickly over the finish line and all of it to coalesce is like, OK, this team had a very like had a. I hate to compare them to the Steelers, but this team had a vibe of like, OK, you won 10 games. What does that mean? It was very similar. Yes. And to break to break out of that in style, not just become better and achieve a higher ceiling and be right about Gino and Sam, but to win the Super Bowl in just dominant fashion. It's pretty cool. One of the aspects of this team that will be different this year, the offensive coordinator will not be here. He will be the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. And they you know, the offense was far from dominant tonight, but they had plenty of stretches and plenty of moments that I think were impressive. their opening drive at the second half was to me like I was like okay like they're starting to get a little bit going here and to me that was like it was a lot of stuff that they've done well all year kind of stacked up together drive ends in a field goal but you see some of the moments first play of the drive it's a little high low pin down with Shahid on like a little in breaker with cup tying it down Sam does a great job progressing back to the back side there pressure in his face makes the throw next play they're in empty the Patriots have three DBs on the field to the Seahawks 12 personnel with the Seattle and empty. So it's a juicy juicy look and they hit JSN on like a big in breaker slant for a chunk. They go tempo there instant pressure on the next play. Sam makes Milton Williams miss takes off for 11 yards. And so that that to me Sam Darnold did not have his best game. Sam Darnold's not the story of this game. What he did to mitigate pressure and avoid sacks consistently was probably the best thing he did today i thought it was remarkable and yeah like he shouldn't have won mvp i'm not saying he was incredible but we were talking about it throughout the game just the little steps he would take to get around or get around a rusher and find a throwing lane or just outright avoid a sack like the patriots had at least one maybe two snaps where he was dead to rights yeah and we know sam's athletic but like if if caleb on chase on gets his hands on you in the backfield i assume it's going it's you're going down and he got out of a couple of those he had the scramble on that field goal drive if he i'm thinking about the uh the cup miss i believe it was like right down here in the red zone yeah a little speed out right there like if he hits a couple more throws i think people would be talking about this in a much different light and oh my god like the i mean the he he avoided pressure down in his own red zone early in the game and almost hit jsn on what would have been like an 86 yard touchdown the game open so crazy he he missed having a much much better statistical night by like three throws. And I still thought he played pretty well. He's not the story of this game, but they're not here without him. Absolutely. I mean, the game he played in the NFC championship game, they're not here without him. Sandor was a crucial component to what the Seahawks were this season. And even in this game, I think I had posted something like they weren't moving the ball with the passing game, obviously for a lot of this game. But in the first half, there was one point I looked up and Sam was like five of 14. And I was like, he's kind of winning them the game because he's not taking sacks. And Drake may have taken like three or four at that point. And it was just like the Patriots could not move the ball because three or four times Drake Mays losing five yards here, eight yards here, whatever it is. And Sam bailed them out like four or five times in the first half. Obviously had that big scramble on that that second half drive. Like it was just he was really impressive in terms of not taking the negative place. It felt like a really big theme while the game was still close was it's third and four or third and six instead of third and long because of something that Sam did. the last play on that field goal drive that I wanted to mention again just kind of the moments that we've come to expect from Seattle from a creativity standpoint the fact that Clint Kubiak has been impressive all year on that same drive to go up 12 nothing after the Sam scramble for 11 yards JSN's in the backfield and we asked him in the preview show what is the wrinkle gonna be when they put JSN in the backfield and all of this attention gravity that he has to the left side on that play they throw a screen back the other way for 20 yards to set up the field goal and so it wasn't a great game for the Seahawks offense, but you still saw some of those elements that really did drive them this year. And to me that ends and is capped off with the AJ Barnard touchdown is a beautiful play. It's 12 personnel. He shuffles, shuffle motion. They insert him off play action and he goes right to the corner. It's a beautiful throw. And so not the best game from Seattle's offense, but you still saw a lot of the elements that made them who they were for most of the season. And I don't know this for sure. Maybe Mike McDonald would talk about it at some point, watching it live, especially once we sort of got into a flow, which we really did, by the way, there were no penalties in the first half of this game. Like excellent. Loved it. But after at a certain point, I sort of got the vibe where I was like, Seattle knows if they don't just muck this up on offense, they're going to win this game. And I think that speaks to the run game performance. It was just like, we just need to lean on this. And the fact that they could run the ball in the way that they did, that was enough. that was enough for them to win this game and credit to Kenneth Walker and to the entire run game infrastructure and ecosystem, because they did more than enough to get this thing over the finish line. That's one really interesting wrinkle. I think to the Seattle really the entire story of their season is that like when the first 12 weeks of the season, when Jason was going to win offensive player of the year and all that stuff, um, I mean he did, but like when it seemed like he would run away with it and it wouldn't be anywhere close. Um, and Sam Donald was like, you know, obviously playing some of his best ball. They were getting out to these really early leads and then you have the best defense in the league. You can kind of just like teams have to throw against you. You can kind of choke them out. Over the last like six weeks of the regular season and really into most of the playoffs, it was a lot of like, okay, the passing game is a little bit more up and down. We're making some more mistakes, some more turnovers. It's more, you know, it's just not as consistent as they wanted it to be. And they were like, you know what? We found the run game and now they can be our explosive. We trust that the defense will do what they have to do. We'll just run the clock out on the other side. The fact that they could kind of be these two different versions of the team down the stretch, I thought was was incredibly impressive. You need that. Yes, you need that to win Super Bowls. You need to be able to tap into different versions of yourself. And the fact that the run game carried them the way that they did. And like I Zach Charbonnet, there's a reason that Zach Charbonnet was a part of this team. He's a really good pass protector. They don't like to ask Kenneth Walker to pass protect. They didn't today. You made that joke to me. Three quarters of the way through the game, I think I joke to you. I was like, how many pass blocking snaps do you think Kenneth Walker has in this game? and you were like zero. I was like, it is zero. It is actually zero. They have not asked him to do it. And so Zach Charbonnet had a role. That role made a ton of sense. But for Walker to kind of be put into the spotlight as we got down the stretch and for him to become a real focal point for the offense, you saw how special of a runner he is. He just, he's absurdly talented. He's imperfect. There are things about him that are a little bit frustrating. I think that's the reason that you get Charbonnet in the red zone. You get Charbonnet in short yardage because Kenneth Walker can be a little bit hit or miss sometimes, but you really saw what he can be at his best. I mean, the 29-yard run he had on their fourth drive for the field goal to go up 6-0, it's a beautiful play design where they have Saubert just go in motion really quickly and it pulls, I think it was Ellis, off the line of scrimmage and it sets up a perfect little angle for Bradford to climb up to him. The motion bumps Spillane over just enough for Zabel to climb up to him on the backside and then Sundell does a great job on Tonga at the point of attack and there's just that little sliver and Walker's gone to 29 yard run. And so you really just felt the explosiveness and just him being a stick of dynamite in the backfield the entire postseason. You know what's funny? I mean, they happened in quick succession and that was a really well drawn up play. I loved the 30 yarder right before it even more because Seattle didn't get it right. Like Gray's able got walked back into Walker's lap and he gets around that. He sheds a tackle mid like halfway to the sticks. and turns it into a 30-yard gain where it was not blocked for him. Like, it was Kenneth Walker doing that. To have those two plays back-to-back was really cool. And I did say I would have voted for Derek Hall. Imagine Kenneth Walker's agent right now, like when he hears Super Bowl MVP, like, all right, we're going to Indy with some real leverage here. Kenneth Walker's making a shitload of money this offseason. I think that his playoff run will give you that. All right, before we get to what's next for the Patriots, we're going to take one more quick break. Who will understand the world today, must come back to 1979. In his new book, The 21st century, which began in 1979, he lets Maarten van Rossum see how decisive this period was for our time. Compact, sharp and on-scanbaar Maarten van Rossum. For everyone who wants to watch the actuality. Now in the book. Global shifts are redefining business. How can you stay ahead? Find the answers on our Think Ahead podcast. Humans make mistakes. The generative AI can outperform and reach superhuman levels of performance. We get ourselves tied up in knots about, oh, we can't analyze the algorithm when what we really need to do is analyze the output and compare it to how good humans would be at that task. Stay informed and stay ahead with the Think Ahead podcast from London Business School. let's get to the Patriots side of this the offense got its ass kicked in the playoffs like there's just no way around that right I mean like I think that too often we can go to very simplistic explanations for things where it's just like well they were frauds right like they played a terrible schedule they weren't as good as the as the numbers would lead you to believe and I think if you watch what the playoffs were and I know that the Seahawks defense is a phenomenal. I think it's kind of hard to come to any other conclusion than the Patriots really did pick on some bad teams for a good chunk of this season. They played against four really good defenses in the playoffs and did not play well against any of them. Like if you had a couple of bad games, if it was two and two and you maybe escaped with some good ones, fine. But the fact that they were bad in all four of them. And again, I know some of the weather, all the other conditions, but like they never really looked like a competent offense for most of the postseason. We've done this with teams in the past where there's like a bar where if you're above the bar, they're the type of unit that struggles with you. We talked about this with the Chargers last year. Remember when we talked about this, the Chargers defense was a defense in 2024 where when they were playing against bad offenses, they'd f***ing dismantle you. There was no way you were keeping up with them because of how well coached they were. But when you had a talent disparity. When they played the Bengals. That's when things looked very different. And I think that's kind of how this Patriots offense feels, where when they were playing defenses underneath that bar, and really the only good defense they played against the entire regular season was the Browns. And the Browns are very specific kind of defense. When you're playing against teams where they're going to put an umbrella over it, they're going to make the explosives hard to come by. They're going to really make you work. We saw the flaws in this Patriots team. And I think that Drake May had a really, really, really nice second season. I think he was legitimately in the conversation to be the MVP because of what he did with this team. But I think what he did in the playoffs and what he did tonight, you see how far him and I think the rest of this offense still has to go for them to be the team that's going to be lifting the Lombardi trophy at some point. It's funny because we don't have to revise what we said. It's still true. They made it to the Super Bowl. They were playing in the last game. But I thought about that because in the preview episode, we talked about, well, the team that spends a billion dollars in free agency and just tries to raise the floor of things with free agent production, it's not supposed to end this well. You're not supposed to get to the Super Bowl. It a sign that you not good enough Right It a sign that you don have The right amount of talent To get to this point But I found myself thinking that during the game where I was like yeah like the weapons aren good enough The offensive line is better than the mess that it was last year It is still not good. They got their asses kicked today. And so dominated in this game the exact way we thought they might where I was sitting there on Thursday being like, tell me why Seattle's defensive line isn't going to completely control this game. And that's exactly what happened. The offensive line was completely outgunned, and they don't have a skill player that you can be like, we're going to call it up for that guy. And I think that can all be true, and the quarterback still didn't play well. Oh, no, he did not play well. He missed. He was holding onto the ball. Obviously, the strip sack happens. That's the situation where he's got to be better than that. There was one over route he tried to throw to Demario Douglas that he put a couple feet. Yeah, that was open. It was ketchup like he barely put to his feet or whatever, but he could have just hit him in the chest, and that's an easy catcher run. He misses that. That's the worst throw I think he left on the board the entire game. And so he just he had some of those moments in that. Again, that doesn't take away from how incredible his regular season was. He was obviously obviously phenomenal. He's going to move forward as a guy we talk about. It's like a top eight, 10 quarterback, whatever. He just did not look good against the best defense that he had to play against. And again, I think that speaks to as much of the maturity that he probably still needs to go through. And also like this was an offense that was outgunned against actually talented defense. Yes. It reminds me of the debate that we have in basketball all the time, particularly with Jordan and LeBron. where it's like, well, what's better going out, quote unquote, honorably in the divisional round and getting your ass kicked in the Super Bowl or just losing early so you don't have to deal with the indignity of getting wiped off the field in the biggest game of the year. I'm not going to penalize the Pats for getting here, but it's things when your flaws are laid bare so obviously on this stage. I think it reframes what they were offensively and what our expectations for them should be. You know, I think that this is a team that if you look at the numbers, they were a top three offense by any single measure, but the schedule was really bad. And so the expectation that they're just going to walk into next season and be a top five offense again against a better schedule, I think that's probably misguided, right? I think that they still have a long way to go. The offensive line, those young guys need to be better. Like there's just like no way around that. Like they've spent the resources draft capital wise on the left side. That group has to be better. Will Campbell was very bad throughout the playoffs. He gave up double digit pressures today. Very bad. Who had a worst month, Drake May or Will Campbell? I mean, I think it was the answer objectively is Will Campbell. The answer to the general public is Drake May. I think that's yes. I mean, we've been talking about it all month long. Like all the concerns you had about Will Campbell came to light at the absolute worst time. And guess what? Teams that make the playoffs typically have great edge rushers. Like that's got to be something you figure out. I think we talked a lot all year about how composed and in control Drake May looked almost the entire season, like just very rarely rattled, very rarely pushed away from making the right plays consistently. And you watch what he was in the playoffs. And when you watch what he was tonight, he wasn't in control. He wasn't composed. He was rattled consistently. And he's a second year quarterback. That's going to happen. but it really was a very stark contrast to watch this version of him in this game in the last month compared to what he looks like for a good majority of the season and this is you know i think at one point we were talking about justin herbert and you were like you kind of made the joke that he's swung too far the other end into being like too much of a dumbass sometimes which i still think is good for him but like i i get it i almost think drake may for as good as it's been for him to just be like avoids interceptions this year like really doesn't make mistakes all that stuff it felt like in a lot of the biggest moments really down the stretch he just didn't want to force the ball into he was holding out of the ball too long didn't want to make plays which it's kind of funny because when he came out of college he was like this wild bronco that would kind of throw into windows maybe he wasn't supposed to and so i think the fact that it's kind of in some of these moments been so drawn out of his game i would i would like to get like 15 of that back you look at their we talk about the seahawks and how they were built and the quality of the drafting and why they've arrived in this in that in this moment that's what the patriots are going to need to do, right? Like you can spend as much money as you want on the Carlton Davises of the world. And you know, Davis is a different thing. What Milton Williams is like a foundational piece. He's a 25 year old guy or whatever he is, but the Carlton Davises, guys like Cleven Chason, Tonga, those guys are free agents. Now Morgan Moses is getting a little bit older. Like in order for them to get back to this point and to be a team that's going to be consistently competitive, you're going to need this class, the next class, those guys to hit, because you look back at it For the most part, their last four or five draft classes, those are not contributing players. We talked about the 2022 class with Charles Cross, that contributing what the Seahawks are. That was the Cole Strange-Taequan Thornton draft of the Patriots. Oh, that's tough. 2023, we got Christian Gonzalez in the first round. But other than that, Keon White, Jake Andrews, not on the team anymore. Marty Mapu, Chad Ryland in the fourth round. The 2024 draft, we know, is a nightmare, right? You got Drake May in the first round. After that, Jalen Polk in the second round. Wow, I completely forgot about that Also not on the team anymore And so that draft with Campbell, Henderson, Kyle Williams, Jared Wilson Craig Woodson was really good tonight Shout out to him, he was incredible We're starting to see I mean again, if Campbell can kind of course correct A little bit, that draft is going to have To be a foundational thing for New England In the same way that those 2023 to 2024 Drafts have been for the Seahawks We gotta say Christian Gonzalez's name Unbelievable Gonzalez and Woodson kept this competitive in the first half. I mean, Gonzo in particular took two touchdowns off the board. Awesome. He was really good. And yeah, Gonzalez, I think his first nine matchups that he was one-on-one or tasked with covering JSN, nine plays one target zero yards on those first nine plays. And then the backside inbreaker they tried to hit to him in that one-on-one where it was a three-by-one all over it just completely all over it they try to throw the deep post to shaheed at one point he was over the top of that he was unbelievable there is a bedrock of there is enough to build on here obviously this team is in the playing in the goddamn super bowl but they still do have some gaps to close when it comes to when you look at what seattle is when you yes when you're comparing the class of team just is it's seattle has goes like 35 deep on like serious contributing good players new england probably goes like a dozen deep and then has a couple other nice like players Like it's just a different caliber team we're talking about. You need development from the offensive line. I think they need another pass catcher. I think they need one more young guy. I mean, they were relying on Matt Collins in this game, which like he's a fun like side player to have. Hopefully Kyle Williams can become that for you. Hopefully Will Campbell's better in year two. Hopefully Jared Wilson's better in year two. And you can start growing that way. Kyle Williams made one of the plays of the night that viewers probably did not see because he tackled the streaker. It's probably happened. I'm not saying it's never happened, But Kyle Williams hawked the streaker down from 20 yards away. And I just I've never seen a player get that involved in catching a streaker. I was very amused by it. It says a lot that that was probably like the third best play from the Patriots offense. Yes, exactly. Anything else from you guys? You you bet your ass. We absolutely. We're going to talk about punting. Yeah, we are. Are you kidding me? What a beautiful way to end. First of all, let's shout out Jason Myers for going five of five. We did. I mean, we said that was going to be an advantage. None of his kicks were particularly difficult, but you could at least make a case for him to win MVP. I would not have voted for him, but Jason Myers had a hell of a night. Both punters, both punters were amazing in this game. Michael Dixon kind of stole the show because the Seahawks won net average of 48 yards per punt. He downed three inside the Seahawks 20 yard line, and all of those were actually inside the 10. Put them on their own to put them on their own for put them on their own six. but who I really want to shout out is Bryce Berenger. Because like you come into this game thinking that Dixon is the advantage. No, you guys are laughing. Bryce Berenger. No, he played a good game. If the Patriots managed to win this game. That's what I'll remember about tonight. If the Patriots managed to win this game, you're looking back and being like, holy shit, the punter kept them in it. He had four punts down inside the 20 and two more down inside the 25. And all of those pinned Seattle deep. not all at least no actually all of them all of them were when it was a two score game or less and you needed to pin Seattle to have a shot of keeping this from becoming a blowout obviously that did not happen but he was dialed in all right and then I'll be done after this there were 15 total punts in this game there were 20 return yards total that's kind of crazy pretty damn good returners yeah that's insane we shouted it out in the preview I thought the returners might make a difference in this game they were completely negated shaheed and jones both had nothing to do it was a punting clinic and i legitimately really loved it i'm done now you want to see this i'm going to bring it all back around yeah seahawks special teams all year one of the best special teams teams in the league they were when you think about why they were great it's not just the defense it's not just sam darnold being so much more than we could have expected top to bottom including the special teams this was the best team in football and they showed us that again tonight. No argument here. Unbelievably well done. Just a master at work. This is the guy who like Rain Man can tell me everybody's assignment live in the moment, but he thinks I'm weird for loving punting. Sure. It was a strange season. It was a great season. I really enjoyed doing it with you guys. The fact that we still get to do this show with this backdrop, you see what's on the Jumbo Trout. Shout out to our wonderful crew. Everybody here. For the first time this year, obviously, Bellar for the first time this year Bellar had help we have Scott our wonderful social media producer Katie who came on right before the season and just was absolutely incredible we got Joe and Don here tonight helping us with the video stuff we are it's just it feels so much different than it has in previous years deep as the Seahawks where we have we have so much support so much help our crew has been unbelievable and putting on all of the live stuff we've done this year all the YouTube stuff we've done this year. I had so much fun doing the show this year with you guys. And I sincerely appreciate everybody who listened to the show this year. We are deeply grateful and privileged to do it in the way that we can and to be able to sit here and take this in. And so it wouldn't be possible without all of you. And I sincerely appreciate everybody who tuned in this year because it really does mean a lot to us. What a blast. Can't wait to do it again. Yeah. I'm just glad this season went this way just in terms of how weird it was, how we got to do it. It was perfect. We'll be back a couple of different times this week. Yeah. The combines in two weeks. Building the beast is going up on Tuesday, on Tuesday, like building the beast. We coming your guys away this year, this week. I think we'll have two more shows this week. Other than that, we've, there's so much coaching news. We haven't talked about. We haven't talked about Michael Fleur at all. We haven't a couple other hirings that I wanted to hit a couple of firings that we wanted to hit. So we're going to have plenty of shows coming your way this week. We will take, I'm going on vacation for at least a little bit. You are as well, but the podcasts are not stopping and we will be in Indianapolis bringing you tons of combine coverage two weeks from now. So for now though, that is all we've got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We will talk to you very soon. Who will understand the world today, must come back to 1979. In his new book, the 21st century, which began in 1979, he will see how decisive this period was for our time. Compact, sharp and on-saccessing Maarten van Rossum. For everyone who wants to watch the actuality. Now in the sales. Season 3 of the Talent Transformation Podcast is here. Join Avature CEO Dimitri Boylan as he talks with HR leaders who are leveraging disruption to stay ahead. Hear from the brilliant minds behind the talent strategies at IBM, Siemens Energy, Transcom, and many more. Subscribe now so you never miss an episode. The Talent Transformation Podcast, redefining talent, one conversation at a time. you