The Seattle Seahawks will take on the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8. Unless you believe in conspiracies, it would have been hard to imagine writing that sentence this time last year. Let’s take a closer look at how this matchup proves that the NFL is still a league where fortunes can change in an instant.

New England Almost Picked First in 2025

The New England Patriots finished the 2024-2025 season 4-13 and very much in the running for the first overall pick in last April’s draft. A victory over the Buffalo Bills in the final week of the season dropped them to the number four pick where they took Will Campell.

Coach Jerod Mayo was fired the day after the game and eventually replaced by Mike Vrable. At that point, the only positive thing that most said about the team was that Drake Maye looked like a franchise quarterback in the making.

Seattle Had Been Flailing in Mediocrity

Seattle hadn’t reached the playoffs since 2022 and had not won a playoff game since 2019. The Seahawks were coming off a 10-7 season that sounds much better than they actually played for much of the season.

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Geno Smith had seemingly reached the zenith of his potential, and the team decided that they couldn’t go any farther with him. He was traded to Las Vegas before signing Sam Darnold to a three-year deal in free agency.

How New England Pulled off Their Rebuild

New England had significant cap space as a result of having few star players on their roster. It also helps that Drake Maye is still on his rookie contract that carried a cap hit of just $8.3 million this season.

Still, the team had a strong draft getting contributions from running back TreVeyon Henderson and safety Craig Watson. Furthermore, Will Campell, Jared Wilson and Marcus Bryant all played 12 or more games each along the offensive line.

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In addition, they signed receiver Stefon Diggs as well as receiver Mack Hollins to give Maye more options to throw to. Hunter Henry also had another solid season at tight end finishing with 768 receiving yards and seven touchdowns.

The Schedule Helped a Bit

You can only play who is on your schedule, and winning 14 games isn’t easy regardless of who the opponents are. However, the Patriots had a historically easy schedule as opposing teams had a combined win percentage of just .429. They also managed to avoid Buffalo in the playoffs, which was important because the Bills were the last team to defeat them.

How Seattle Finally Broke Through

Seattle finally found the right quarterback to fit the talent already established at the skill positions. Sam Darnold likes to push the ball vertically, which is ideal when you have Jaxon Smith-Njigba on the roster.

The Seahawks also leveraged a strong run game and top 10 defense to ensure that Darnold wasn’t asked to carry the team on his own. Top pick Grey Zabel was largely credited with bolstering the offensive line while second round pick Nick Emmanwori emerged as an elite piece at safety.

Last year’s top pick Byron Murphy emerged as a dominant force on the defensive line as he had seven sacks on the year. The contributions from these two players allowed for greater scheme flexibility, which makes it harder for opposing offenses to get a feel for what they were doing.

Other Teams Took Steps This Year as Well

While the Seahawks and Patriots are getting the spotlight right now, they weren’t the only teams to take massive leaps this year. The Bears won the NFC North just a year after finishing last in the division with a 5-12 record.

The turnaround is largely credited to Ben Johnson who was hired away from Detroit during the offseason to be Chicago’s head coach. In addition, the Carolina Panthers went from one of the worst teams in the league in 2024 to win the NFC South in 2025.

In the AFC, Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars seem poised for great things after winning the AFC South with a 13-4 regular season record. The team that New England beat in the AFC title game, the Denver Broncos, should also feel good about where they are having won 14 games this season.

Nothing Is Guaranteed

The biggest takeaway from this season is that nothing is guaranteed. If you had said that the Ravens, Chiefs and Bengals would all miss out on the postseason, that would have sounded absurd.

If you said that the Vikings and Lions would miss out on the playoffs after winning a combined 29 games last year, that would have sounded just as ridiculous. However, both of those things happened.

This year’s Super Bowl has shown that coaching, roster building and cap management mean just as much as talent when it comes to winning. Gone are the days when it takes multiple years to turn around a team’s fortunes, and that will likely lead to greater turnover among coaches and players as owners search for the right combination to lead them to glory.

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