The defense of the team this Sunday in the Super Bowl. With a wall, which was from the beginning of the game of desperation for the New England Patriots, the West Coast team thus secured the second Vince Lombardi trophy by scoring two touchdowns in a final quarter in which they also retaliated in attack. It was also a particular revenge: 11 years ago, the same match ended with the victory of the Patriots and the fourth victory of a franchise that this Sunday was on the verge of winning its seventh ring, which would have made it the most successful in the history of the NFL.
That 2015 game couldn’t be more different than this one. If then the Boston team were losing by 10 with less than eight minutes left, and ended up winning (28-24) in a last play that went down in heart attack history, in this one, the Patriots broke several negative records and seemed doomed from the beginning. Also although at the beginning of the last quarter they managed to score a touchdownwhich left the score at 19-7. There was even time for another one, which felt more like kicking a corpse, the corpse of this team’s chances of winning again, for the first time since 2018.
Throughout the game, they scored five field goals, a record, and two touchdownsas they managed to clear one Patriots attack after another. They were also able to endorse a fumble al quarterback Drake Maye, director of attack for the Patriots, a 23-year-old young man with a bright future ahead of him. This was his second season in the elite of American football, and on Sunday he had to wait for his consecration as an alternative to the most illustrious predecessor in his position: the legendary Tom Brady, who attended the game like other NFL glories.
The incident had begun with a kickoff for the Patriots. From the first play, the Seahawks laid the cards on the table for the aggressiveness with which they wanted to approach the game from the beginning. That first drive ended in a 34-yard field goal by the kicker Jason Myers
In their first advance, the Boston team came away empty-handed. Also in the second. And in the third. And so on: they had the worst offensive halftime of the team. Otherwise, the first quarter was the story of two defenses exhausting the attackers’ ideas. In the second, two devastating runs by the running back Kenneth Walker III brought the stadium to its feet before the Seahawks’ attack ended with a new field goal by Myers, this time from 39 yards (one yard is 0.91 meters). He made the score 6-0.
At the end of the first half, and after a continued clash between the two battleships, the Seahawks scored the third field goal, this time, from 42 yards. So when they won 9-0, Maye already looked desperate, out of ideas. As for Sam Darnold, the Seahawks quarterback completed this Sunday his particular path towards the light at the end of a tunnel of a career that started on the wrong foot in the New York Jets and that, five teams later, thus achieved his redemption, after leading his team through a memorable season (14 wins, three losses).
In the stands, the victory was also from the beginning for the Seahawks fans, who surpassed the rival in numbers and in decibels, especially when they launched their war cry in two stages: “Sea! Hawks! Sea! Hawks!”. In his honor, a small plane passed the couple of hours before the kickoff flying over the state with a banner that simply said, “12”; Seattle is the only NFL team that retired that number in tribute to its fans, one of the most committed in the league. Geographic proximity, or the curiosity of seeing your team win on the field of close rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, could have contributed to the call.
