After 284 games, the Super Bowl is finally here!
Again, I’ve provided some additional metrics and info along with our normal head-to-head comparisons based on team stats below.
Remember: Green = Good, Red = Bad.
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Patriots Offense vs. Seahawks Defense
This is a strength-on-strength matchup. The Patriots offense ranked 2nd in points and 2nd in yards per play this season. The Seahawks defense ranked 1st in points and 2nd in yards per play allowed.
Passing Game
The Patriots like to take their shots downfield. They finished the year with the highest intended air yards per attempt and air yards per completion in the NFL, and they had the 2nd-most completions of 20 yards or more.
Seattle’s defense ranked 1st in air yards per completion allowed.
Seattle operates predominantly out of split-safety looks (3rd highest frequency according to Cody Alexander of MatchQuarters), using zone ~70% of the time. They try to keep the passing game in front of them and hold their looks until after the snap, keeping the quarterback from understanding the coverage until post-snap so they are slower to get the ball out of their hands.
Drake Maye has not been as good in the playoffs at attacking downfield as he was during the regular season. He has completed just 9 of 26 passes on throws traveling 10 yards or more from the line of scrimmage (34.6%) according to NFL Next Gen Stats. During the regular season, he completed 61.2% of those passes.
The Seahawks can play man coverage when they need to (5th in EPA against), but I don’t anticipate them playing as much as they did in the NFC Championship Game vs. the Rams. Especially since Drake Maye has been much more comfortable vs. man than zone during the postseason (3 of his 4 TD passes have come vs. man).
Pass Rush & Protection
The Patriots don’t have many weaknesses on offense. However, they do tend to allow pressure and sacks. They were 16th in pressure % allowed and 26th in sack % this season.
Many of the sacks were likely a result of Drake Maye holding the ball a bit too long or looking to use his legs to keep dead plays alive. The Patriots had the largest % of pass plays where it took more than 2.5 seconds to throw the ball this season.
In the playoffs, Maye has been pressured on 32.7% of dropbacks according to Pro Football Focus, and he’s taken 15 sacks in 3 games. He’s fumbled on 5 of those sacks as well (6 total fumbles).
The Seahawks love to use use stunts (3rd-highest frequency in the NFL) in order to generate pressure inside with their dynamic interior D-line.
They ranked 6th in pressure percentage and 7th in sacks this season.
The Seahawks are the only team that had 5 D-linemen with more than 40 pressures during the regular season (DeMarcus Lawrence, Byron Murphy, Leonard Williams, Uchenna Nwosu, Boye Mafe).
The Seahawks don’t blitz often, but when they do, they’re very effective. They were the #1 blitz defense in the NFL this season based on passer rating.
But Drake Maye has been very good against the blitz this season, leading all QBs with a 131.7 passer rating according to Pro-Football-Reference.