The Seattle Seahawks didn’t just win Super Bowl LX; they completely dismantled the New England Patriots with a defensive strategy that shouldn’t have worked. In a league where everyone zigs, head coach Mike Macdonald zagged, delivering a masterclass performance that left the Patriots’ offense scrambling for answers they never found.
It sounds simple on paper: stop the run with a light defensive box and keep two safeties deep just in case. In reality, that is a gamble most coaches lose. But Sunday night wasn’t about conventional wisdom. It was about pure, unadulterated dominance. The Seahawks pulled off a 29-13 victory that felt even more lopsided than the score suggests, proving that when you have the right talent and a fearless leader, you can break all the rules.
Rewriting the Defensive Playbook
Usually, if a defense lines up with fewer big bodies near the line of scrimmage, the offense runs the ball down their throat. Seattle invited them to try.
Under Macdonald’s creative scheme, the Seahawks spent the season defying expectations, ranking first in Defensive DVOA. But in the Super Bowl, they tripled down on their unique philosophy. Seattle lined up in “dime” formation—using six defensive backs—on a staggering 53.7% of their snaps. That is 43.5% higher than the league average for the 2025 season.
The result? They held a powerful Patriots run game to just 79 yards on 18 carries. Even with light boxes, the Patriots couldn’t move the rock. It was a suffocating performance that forced New England to play left-handed all night.
Chaos for Drake Maye
Perhaps the most mind-blowing stat of the night was how Seattle generated pressure. Typically, to rattle a quarterback like Drake Maye, you have to send the house—blitzing linebackers and safeties to overwhelm the blockers.
Seattle didn’t need to. They blitzed on just 13.2% of snaps yet pressured Maye a massive 43.4% of the time. The rookie quarterback was sacked six times and hit relentlessly. Because the Seahawks could generate pressure with just their defensive line, they could afford to keep their safeties deep, taking away any chance of a big play downfield. It was a perfect trap, and Maye walked right into it.
The Dominance Up Front
Safety Julian Love, who snagged an interception during the rout, credited the men in the trenches for making the secondary’s job easy. It wasn’t just about the scheme; it was about the “Jimmies and Joes” executing at an elite level.
“To be able to run the scheme that we do and have success the way we have, it just takes talent,” Love said. “It starts up front. Byron Murphy, honestly he’s kind of the heartbeat of our defense… Him, Leonard Williams, Jarran Reed up front, the depth that we have in the interior, then our edge, our killers.”
Love highlighted the freedom this dominance gave the secondary. With the defensive line shutting down the run and harassing the quarterback, players like rookie sensation Nick Emmanwori and Devon Witherspoon were free to roam and make plays.
Trusting the Talent
The game plan required immense trust in specific players to handle heavy workloads. Linebacker Ernest Jones found himself as the lone linebacker on the field for much of the game, a challenge he embraced fully.
“I never wanted to be a two-down linebacker,” Jones said. “I wanted to play all the downs and to develop that skill set to be out there on the field all the time… You don’t take your leader out of the game.”
Defensive coordinator Aden Durde echoed this sentiment, noting that the coaching staff’s primary goal was to enhance their players’ natural abilities. By focusing on fundamentals and allowing their stars to shine, they created a defensive unit that was adaptable, explosive, and frankly, terrifying.
A New Standard for the League
Mike Macdonald has officially put the rest of the NFL on notice. He took a strategy that many considered risky and turned it into a championship-winning formula. The Seahawks have proven that you can stop the run with speed rather than size, and you can crush a quarterback without leaving your secondary vulnerable.
The NFL is a copycat league, and come next season, 31 other teams will be trying to replicate what Seattle just did. But as the Patriots learned the hard way in Super Bowl LX, trying to copy this Seahawks defense is one thing—surviving it is something else entirely.
