The confetti has fallen at the AFC Championship Game in Denver and the NFC Championship Game in Seattle, and we now have our Super Bowl LX matchup: the AFC’s second-seeded New England Patriots towards the NFC’s top-seeded Seattle Seahawks.
When the two groups take the area at Levi’s Stadium on Feb. 8, it would mark the first Super Bowl in NFL historical past through which each beginning quarterbacks (the Patriots’ Drake Maye and the Seahawks’ Sam Darnold) and each head coaches (the Patriots’ Mike Vrabel and the Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald) are in both their first or second season with their respective groups, per CBS Sports Research.
Maye versus Darnold can even be simply the third Super Bowl matchup in the previous 40 years through which each quarterbacks entered the season with no playoff wins, becoming a member of the 1999 season’s Kurt Warner vs. Steve McNair and the 2021 season’s Matthew Stafford vs. Joe Burrow.
The Patriots franchise returned for its NFL-record twelfth Super Bowl look as the first workforce to attain the huge recreation after a 13-plus loss season. (New England went 4-13 in 2024.) The Seahawks broke by for his or her fourth Super Bowl look and first since Super Bowl XLIX towards the Patriots in 2014.
New England made it rain in free company, signing huge receiver Stefon Diggs, cornerback Carlton Davis, defensive lineman Milton Williams and edge rusher Harold Landry, whereas additionally drafting offensive lineman Will Campbell fourth general. Those strikes helped raise the Patriots again to the Super Bowl six seasons after Tom Brady’s departure to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Seattle additionally reshaped its roster, swapping out Geno Smith for Sam Darnold at quarterback, elevating Jaxon Smith-Njigba to the WR1 spot after buying and selling DK Metcalf to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and signing Pro Bowl edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence and former Super Bowl MVP huge receiver Cooper Kupp in free company. The adjustments helped the Seahawks attain Super Bowl heights as soon as once more.
So what is going to occur in Super Bowl LX between the Patriots and Seahawks? Enjoy an early breakdown and prediction to kick off your two-week look forward to the huge recreation.
Where to watch Super Bowl 2026
- Date: Sunday, Feb. 8 | Time: 6:30 p.m. ET
- Location: Levi’s Stadium (Santa Clara, California)
- TV: NBC | Stream: Fubo (strive totally free)
- Follow: CBS Sports App
- Odds: Seahawks -4.5, O/U 46.5 (by way of DraftKings Sportsbook)
The outdated adage that “defense wins championships” would not all the time ring true, but it surely actually has in the 2025 NFL season. Seattle completed with the league’s No. 1 scoring protection in the common season (17.2 factors per recreation), whereas New England wasn’t far behind, permitting 18.8 factors per recreation, the fourth-fewest in the NFL.
New England performed a bend-but-don’t-break type with the NFL’s eighth-best whole protection, permitting simply 295.2 yards per recreation. Seattle’s unit was led by each a top-10 move rush (47 sacks, tied for the seventh-most) and a top-10 protection group (77.9 passer score allowed, fourth-best).
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald’s protection might pose a litany of issues for Maye, the Patriots’ 2025 second-team All-Pro quarterback, significantly when it comes to move safety. Maye turned the first quarterback ever to be sacked at the least 5 occasions in three video games in a single postseason, taking precisely 5 sacks in every AFC playoff recreation.
Having a leaky offensive line might doom him towards 2025 second-team All-Pro defensive deal with Leonard Williams, Pro Bowl edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence, 2025 second-team All-Pro linebacker Ernest Jones and 2025 second-team All-Pro cornerback Devon Witherspoon. Patriots left deal with Will Campbell, the fourth general decide in the 2025 NFL Draft, has endured loads of rookie struggles in these playoffs. His three sacks allowed and 9 quarterback pressures allowed are each the most in the NFL this postseason.
Darnold led the league in turnovers with 20 in the common season, however like Patriots archnemesis Eli Manning in 2007, he is discovered one other degree in the playoffs. Darnold has performed turnover-free soccer by Seattle’s divisional spherical and NFC title recreation wins, throwing for 470 whole yards and 4 touchdowns whereas finishing 69.8% of his passes (37 of 53).
Now, he has a shot to full a Manning-like path with a victory over the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Smith-Njigba, who led the NFL with 1,793 receiving yards in 2025, is clearly Seattle’s go-to goal, however he’ll have a worthy adversary in Patriots Pro Bowl cornerback Christian Gonzalez in Super Bowl LX.
Early Super Bowl 2026 prediction
Maye and the Patriots successful three consecutive playoff video games regardless of him absorbing 5 sacks in each is a historic anomaly. Maye joined Tony Eason (1986) and Craig Krenzel (2004) as the solely quarterbacks since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger to win three straight video games whereas taking 5 or extra sacks in every, per CBS Sports Research.
In Eason’s case, his three-game streak of luck — additionally with the Patriots –came to an finish with a 31-7 regular-season loss to the Cincinnati Bengals after he took six sacks in Week 14 of the 1986 season. As for Krenzel, a 41-10 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Week 11 of the 2004 season adopted his three-game run, and he took 4 sacks that day.
Maye overcoming that degree of poor move safety for a fourth straight recreation to emerge victorious can be a historic first, and that simply will not occur towards the Seahawks’ No. 1 scoring protection. Seattle wins Super Bowl LX by a number of possessions.
Early decide: Seahawks 27, Patriots 13 | Seahawks -4.5, Under 46.5
