SANTA CLARA, Calif. — As the once-blue California skies turned black Sunday night, a feeling of darkness began to envelop the New England Patriots.
With each third down, the intense jeers from the majority-Seattle Seahawks crowd inside Levi’s Stadium grew. Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, the second-youngest quarterback to ever start a Super Bowl, appeared shaken. And there were no answers in sight.
New England had gained just 32 yards on four drives in the third quarter — each a blown opportunity to shrink the two-score gap against a similarly-struggling Seattle offense. Still, Maye had one more chance to capitalize on third-and-5 with 15 seconds left in the period.
But the ball was poked from Maye’s grasp by Seattle linebacker Derick Hall and recovered by Byron Murphy II, leading to an eventual Seahawks touchdown.
That drive felt like the turning point in the Seahawks’ 29-13 win over the Patriots in Super Bowl LX, the team’s second-ever championship. But it wasn’t the first time Sunday that Seattle’s ferocious defense, designed to pressure opposing quarterbacks, imposed its will against Maye and his shaky offensive line.
“We were honestly mad that they scored at all,” defensive lineman Leonard Williams said. “We were trying to get a shutout.”
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald is the mastermind behind it all.
The former Ravens defensive coordinator became the first head coach to win a Super Bowl as his team’s defensive playcaller. He’s also the third-youngest head coach to win a championship behind Sean McVay and Mike Tomlin.
NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth said the Patriots seemed to be approaching the Super Bowl as they had the AFC championship game, in which they implemented a conservative offense in a snowstorm and beat the Denver Broncos, 10-7.
The difference this time around? The Seahawks’ defense was the blizzard.
Maye was sacked six times — one short of a Super Bowl record — and faced pressure from defenders on 28 plays. Even 185-pound cornerback Devon Witherspoon got a sack, while Murphy and Hall each recorded a pair.
This wasn’t a new or surprising issue for the Patriots. Maye had been sacked on 48.4% of his pressured dropbacks throughout the playoffs, per NextGen Stats, about double his rate from the regular season.
But the Seahawks took that to another level. Rookie left tackle Will Campbell allowed 14 pressures alone, the most by a player in a game this season.
Seahawks safety Julian Love said the defensive pressure allows him and the rest of the secondary to “be free and just play ball.” Maye threw two fourth-quarter interceptions on shots downfield.
“To be able to run the scheme that we do and have success the way we have, it just takes talent,” Love said. “It’s just us lining up again and again on defense and [imposing] our will.”
Macdonald and Seahawks GM John Schneider had a plan with this roster. They invested a heavy dose of resources into the defense. Four starters were day one or two draft picks, Williams was acquired at the 2023 trade deadline and extended for $64.5 million and seven of the team’s 11 highest-paid players in average salary are on that side of the ball.
Macdonald refuses to take all the credit, though.
The 38-year-old said outside linebackers coach Chris Partridge created the team’s tackling curriculum, “EAT” (Effort, Angle and Tackling), which the Seahawks drilled every day throughout the season. Assistant head coach Leslie Frazier was Macdonald’s first phone call when he got the job: “We would not be having this press conference right now if Leslie wasn’t a Seahawk,” he said.
For all the credit he wants to give out, Macdonald set the system that created one of the most dominant defenses in recent memory. It wreaked havoc against opposing offenses all season, and Maye and the Patriots were the last victim.
“We had a good plan. Shoutout to Mike Macdonald,” Love said.
Harrison Rich is a senior at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism. He covered Super Bowl LX for The Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism in partnership with Sports Business Journal.