Bedard: The Seahawks were simply the much better team as they stomp Patriots in Super Bowl LX

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — There will be a lot of disappointment, anger, and venting in New England this morning over the Patriots' 29-13 loss to the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX — and it wasn't nearly that close.

Scapegoats will be sought out. Will Campbell needs to go to guard. Josh McDaniels is overrated and should be fired. Drake Maye turned into a pumpkin in the playoffs, and maybe he was really hurt (he wasn't). Stefon Diggs disappeared.

That will burn out, in all likelihood, after a few days. At some point, everyone needs to accept reality, which should have slapped you hard in the face watching on Sunday night: the Patriots were outclassed talent-wise in all three phases by the Seahawks. Period.

"That’s the best team we’ve faced, obviously, this year," Mike Vrabel said.

"We couldn’t gain any rhythm and field position. We got to get in the drives better offensively. Defensively, we have been really good against the run lately, and we weren’t, and we were just playing catch-up, and we did a great job in the redzone, and we competed, but unfortunately, I think the turnovers ultimately cost us, and appreciate the way the guys offensively battled and competed, but just not enough consistent execution.”

To win the biggest game against the best teams, you need your best players to play their best. You could list about 15 Seahawks, including their kicker and punter. For the Patriots, it was Christian Gonzalez, some Milton Williams (though he missed a couple of point-blank sacks that would have been nice) and ... that's the end of the list. When rookie Craig Woodson is one of your best players, and making a team-high 10 tackles from the safety spot, it's not a great sign.

The Super Bowl was just more of the same from the entire postseason run for the Patriots, namely the offense. The Patriots' defense balled out and got turnovers (eight in three games) against the Chargers, Texans and Broncos, yet the offense couldn't put any of those teams away. If CJ Stroud wasn't a puddle, the Patriots' run could have ended at home in the divisional round. If the Broncos weren't forced to turn to backup Jarrett Stidham, and if he didn't freak out deep in his own territory, Denver might have been in the Super Bowl.

Why? Because the shortcomings of Maye and the Patriots' offense got exposed against the best defenses they faced this season. Yes, Maye was magical most of the season, but he did face the 32nd most difficult offensive schedule. Against four top-notch defenses in the postseason, he completed 58 percent of his passes. That's not all his fault, though he needed to take care of the ball better (he finished the postseason with seven fumbles and four interceptions; in the postseason, Maye committed five turnovers under pressure, including three-strip-sacks and two interceptions, after committing just six such turnovers during the regular season).

One of the paths for the Patriots to win this game, which has been the formula for much of the season, was for Maye to take care of the ball, play efficiently, and make 4-5 special plays in the game. Didn't happen.

Of course, his protection got overwhelmed in the playoffs. And with two weeks to prepare for this game, the Seahawks were unrelenting. According to Next Gen Stats, the Seahawks, who did not yield an explosive designed run, hit the ball carrier behind the line of scrimmage on 53.8% of designed rushes (second-highest for the team this season) while generating a 52.8% pressure rate (second-highest for the team this season, highest of any defense this postseason, fourth-highest in postseason since 2019) despite blitzing on just 13.2% of plays (third-lowest for any defense this postseason).

“As humble as I can say this, watching film, I was thinking, ‘We have too much for them,'” safety Nick Emmanwori said. “‘We’re going to overwhelm them. We have too much.’ A lot of respect to them because we still had to face them, and they had a great team, great scheme. But I knew we had too much. We just have too much as a defense.”

DeMarcus Lawrence and Derick Hall tied their season-highs in pressures (seven and six, respectively), while Hall and Byron Murphy II sacked the quarterback twice each. The Seahawks' defense recorded six sacks that led to two turnovers, setting up 14 points - first on a 16-yard touchdown pass from Sam Darnold to A.J. Barner at the beginning of the fourth quarter, followed by a pick-six by Uchenna Nwosu that put Seattle up by three possessions with 5 minutes left in the game.

“No surprise. No. I mean, you watch the film," said Seahawks LB Earnest Jones. "I think you can get misconstrued a lot of times. What you see on film is truly what a team is, but I think with us, man, once we get in front of you, we’re a different group, so we were able to get out there, get pressure, and get after the quarterback. It’s what I expected from us. We’ve been doing this all year. We’ve been battle-tested. This was nothing.”

Will Campbell allowed a career-high 14 pressures — 14! — in the Super Bowl (26.9% pressure rate), tied for the most by an offensive lineman in a playoff game since 2018. This also marked the most pressures allowed by a Patriots offensive lineman in any regular season or postseason game since 2018. Across the entire postseason, Campbell allowed 29 pressures, the most pressures allowed in a postseason across the NGS era and over half of his regular-season total (51). He declined to talk to the media after the game.

"(Seattle) just made everything mano a mano and they couldn't handle that," an AFC offensive coordinator texted after the game. "They got their ass kicked up front. You can’t scheme around that. Not gonna smoke and mirror your way through a Super Bowl, gotta have the big-time players make the big plays. Never happened."

I mean, listen to 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, known as one of the most brilliant offensive minds in the league, who sees that Seattle defense twice a year.

"I know you guys want my expert opinion, but I haven't scored a touchdown on [the Seahawks] the last two times we've played them, so I don't know how good that is," he said on the pregame show. "It's a grind vs. these guys. ... You want to try to move the safeties, get them out of the way, so you can create a one-on-one with the corner, that (Brock Purdy getting hit as he throws) is what happens. You try to do that, and then the pass rush gets there. It takes a long time to get that ball off to unlock this D, and that's why there's no secret to it."

Oh, and let's also remember that Matthew Stafford, with Puka Nacua and Davante Adams, needed to play basically flawlessly (374 yards, 3 touchdowns) for the Rams to have a chance against this Seahawks defense, and LA still lost.

The Patriots were in a similar rock fight game in the 2018 Super Bowl with the Rams. In the fourth quarter, Tom Brady was 4 of 5 for 67 yards. Rob Gronkowski (2 for 67 yards) and Julian Edelman (1 for 13) had the big catches, and Sony Michel and Rex Burkhead rushed nine times for 69 yards. Of the Patriots' nine plays of 15 or more yards in the game, five came in the fourth quarter, with the top four plays all coming in the final frame.

Big-time players coming through. Didn't happen on Sunday. Of the Patriots' top 10 plays in this game, all but two happened in the fourth quarter in mostly garbage time as Maye got his passing yards to 295, if you can believe it.

The Patriots just aren't there yet. No shame in that.

"You saw it in their last four games," the AFC offensive coordinator said. "The offensive line, with two rookies and a couple of castoffs, got exposed, and the lack of a true gamebreaker caught up to them. The Patriots masked a lot of their issues with explosive plays, but these better defenses they faced just said, 'We're going to limit the big plays, and we'll see if your line and execution is good enough to put together long drives.' You saw the answer.

"This game tells you where you really are, and they aren’t there yet, clearly. But, hey, if it took them getting to the Super Bowl to play the price for not being a true Super Bowl contender, that's pretty freaking good. That team won four games last year!"

That's not to say, perhaps, that Josh McDaniels couldn't have done a little more to find something. The Patriots ran just one screen, although Seattle is one of the best defenses against quick games. Maye was rolled out of the pocket just once, and there were just six play-action plays. There's always a reason, especially with an extra week to prepare, that a team doesn't do certain things against a defense. McDaniels obviously didn't think those concepts were a recipe for success against a very fast defense (that was much faster in person). And even with the long halftime, and being down just 9-0, it's not like Vrabel mandated any big change in plans. 

"Well, I mean, just recognize the things that were happening and where mistakes were being made, and how we need to not have negative yardage plays and be able to not put ourselves behind the chains and stay positive," Vrabel said of his halftime discussion with McDaniels. "And you saw how we started. We started fairly positive, and then again, we stalled. And that's unfortunate, you know, because I thought we did get off to a good start in the second half, just the drive stalled after we had some positive plays."

On the first three drives of the second half, the Patriots got to 3rd and 3, 3rd and 1 and 3rd and 4, and didn't convert any of them (Maye was 0 for 3). On the next possession, Maye was strip-sacked on 3rd and 6, and Seattle converted that into a wide-open touchdown, looked like Jack Gibbens was at fault, to tight end AJ Barner to make it 19-0 early in the fourth quarter.

Maye recorded a -0.44 EPA per dropback in his Super Bowl loss to the Seahawks, the lowest by any quarterback in a Super Bowl since 2016. The Seahawks pressured Maye on 52.8% of his dropbacks, the highest rate by a defense in a Super Bowl in the NGS era, holding Maye to just 11 completions on 20 pass attempts under pressure for 135 yards and two interceptions. Maye was also sacked six times and turned the ball over three times, including one strip-sack and two interceptions (one pick-six). Across four playoff games, Maye committed five turnovers under pressure, including three-strip-sacks and two interceptions, after committing just six such turnovers during the regular season. By the way, even though Maye revealed after the game that he took a painkiller shot in his shoulder before the game, team sources maintain that Maye is "fine."

“I think our secondary did a tremendous job of covering in the backend," said Lawrence. "It forced Drake to hold onto the ball and it allowed us time to get after the quarterback. Throughout the playoffs, we saw that was something we were able to exploit. They played against some great defenses throughout the whole playoffs, including Denver and Houston. Both of those defenses were able to sack him a few times. Being a quarterback, you’re the head of the offense, you’re the head of the team. If you take the head out, the rest will follow. We felt like he was the guy that we had to attack.” 

The defense wasn't without fault either, although it did play very well, thanks to a subpar Sam Darnold, who completed just 50% of his passes and finished with a worse passer rating than Maye despite having zero turnovers.

Part of the formula for a Patriots victory in this game was getting Darnold heated up and turning the ball over. That also didn't happen. First off, they couldn't stop the running of MVP Kenneth Walker, who made things easier on Darnold. The fourth-year back finished with 135 yards on 27 carries. Seven of those carries converted first downs (the Patriots as a team had six first downs through three quarters), and he forced eight missed tackles while averaging 3.3 yards after contact. New England hadn’t allowed a rusher to top 128 yards in a game since Week 18 of the 2023 season.

And Darnold was much better than Maye under pressure.

Darnold was able to get 13 throws off on his pressured dropbacks, completing five for 56 yards and his lone touchdown of the night. He took one sack, moved the chains four additional times, and had a drop that would have further improved the line. He also scrambled once for 11 yards and a first down, forcing a missed tackle in the process. 

Maye under pressure: 7/14 comp, 56 yds, 6 sacks, -0.82 expected points added.
Maye clean: 20 of 29, 196 yards, 0 sacks. 0.17 EPA.

Darnold under pressure: 4 of 12 for 47 yards, 1 sack, -0.09 EPA
Darnold clean: 15 of 26, 157 yards, 0 sacks, +0.02 EPA

The Patriots just couldn't get anyone to make a big play in any phase of the game. The backs couldn't pop anything as the Seahawks defensive line owned the line of scrimmage. The receivers couldn't get loose against Seattle's suffocating match zone defense. The defense played well, but needed to turn over Darnold, and he gave them chances in the first quarter as he threw behind receivers. The Patriots were so desperate for anyone to make a big play that they put TreVeyon Henderson back on a kickoff (should have done that earlier), and on one punt in the second half, they doubled both gunners and played for the return, basically begging for Marcus Jones to give them a spark. He had a decent return, but Dell Pettus was called for a block in the back.

Just typical of their night, when the Seahawks clearly outclassed them in all three phases.

It's the first year of the Vrabel program, and with Maye. They won 17 games this season, 10 coming on the road. They developed an unbelievable team bond that led to Maye tearing up at the postgame podium because of how special the group was.

The team that never got outclassed or blown out during the season did so in the final game of the season. It sucks, being just 60 minutes away from immortality, but it happens.

They'll be back. And they'll be back with a better team. This was just the beginning.