Super Bowl LX Recap: Seahawks Offense vs. Patriots Defense

Right from the start of Super Bowl LX, it was clear what Mike Vrabel’s plan on defense was. He was going to force Sam Darnold to make a critical mistake.

Vrabel tried to do that by throwing the kitchen sink at him. Patriots DB’s jumped or sat on routes right from the opening drive. Many of their coverage choices were designed to try and fool Darnold. They emptied the bag with a variety of blitz designs, bringing them early and often. New England blitzed on over 60% of dropbacks, in fact.

But no matter how hard they tried and how close they came, they weren’t able to force that back-breaking mistake.

This was probably the best aspect of Darnold’s performance. He didn’t throw the ball extremely well, missing several opportunities along the way. But he didn’t turn the ball over. He didn’t take negative plays. He turned potential bad plays into positive or at least neutral plays using both his arm and legs.

That was a huge difference in the game.

Just consider this; according to Pro Football Focus, Darnold was pressured on 45% of dropbacks and Drake Maye was pressured on 43.4% of his dropbacks. The pressure on Maye yielded 6 sacks and 2 turnovers. With Darnold, it led to 1 measly sack.

Along the way, the best offensive performance in the game was undoubtedly by running back Kenneth Walker III. He rushed for 135 yards on 27 carries (5.0 yards per rush) and created a good portion of those yards on his own.

Seahawks Offensive Coordinator Klint Kubiak also did enough to create some big plays by establishing tendencies and then breaking them at just the right time.

The end result might not have been a great offensive performance by Seattle, but it was effective enough given the type of game they were in and how well the defense was handling the Patriots on the other side of the ball.

The Patriots Defense Was So Close

Let’s start with New England’s attempts to get after Darnold. Right from his first pass, you could see New England’s plan in action.

Watch Marcus Jones in the slot to the left try to jump AJ Barner’s route. He just missed, and Barner was able to turn this into a 15-yard gain:

That was one of the better throws on the night by Darnold.

Later in the drive, New England again took a chance to try and force a turnover. Watch Carlton Davis III at the very top of the screen sit on Rashid Shaheed’s deep-out:

It appeared Darnold recognized it at the last moment, which is why this ball was thrown out of bounds and not into Davis’s chest. The Seahawks had to settle for their first of 5 field goals.

On their next drive, the Patriots just missed a chance to get a turnover deep in Seahawks territory.

Darnold put this ball in harm’s way, firing it just a bit high in a tight window. The Patriots were hoping to force contested throws like these, but linebacker Robert Spillane was just a bit too far away to be able to come down with it here:

On the very next play, New England tried to force the issue with disguise. First, the route that Darnold wanted to target to his left was Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s option route:

Based on the coverage, it appeared he would have it. The Patriots were in a split-safety look, but the safety to JSN’s side (Jaylinn Hawkins) was really in the middle of the field:

It appeared he might be rotating even further to the middle. Either way, he had a lot of distance to cover to get over top of Shaheed on the outside. So to Darnold, it appeared he would have JSN’s route available to him.

At the snap, however, Hawkins did start creeping over to JSN’s side. He wasn’t racing over and getting to the sideline, though. So, this appeared to be plain old quarters coverage:

Because it was quarters and slot-corner Marcus Jones was playing inside of JSN, the out would be open:

This was all by design. Jones played inside to force JSN to the perimeter. New England wanted Darnold to think he’d have a safe throw.

But this wasn’t traditional quarters coverage. This was Cover-4 Palms (Cover-2 Trap). Cornerback Carlton Davis would jump JSN’s route as soon as he saw him break outside, and Hawkins would race over the top to take Shaheed’s go-route:

The disguise almost worked. Davis was just a bit too late to make a play on the ball:

I also think Darnold saw the coverage at the last second and threw this ball inside to keep it away from Davis.

A great disguise by the Patriots was foiled once again.

Here’s one more example of the Patriots trying to hide their intentions in coverage. Craig Woodson (#31) would end up being the deep-middle safety on this play. However, he started the snap just 4 yards from the line of scrimmage:

I can’t blame Darnold for targeting Shaheed after seeing the middle open. He had a big completion if not for a great play by Christian Gonzalez. That said, JSN’s deep crosser was wide-open had Darnold looked his way.

Bringing Pressure

As I said above, Vrabel emptied the bag in this game, bringing blitz after blitz, many of which ended up getting free rushers in on Darnold. They just couldn’t make the big play though.

Darnold escaped the free rusher on this example (more on that in a bit):