Tremendous Bowl LX was a two-score sport with lower than 5 minutes remaining. New England had the ball on the Seahawks’ 44-yard line and – after reaching the top zone within the fourth quarter, lastly – that acquainted sense of risk. However that rapidly vaporized when Devon Witherspoon knifed in on a nook blitz and jarred the ball unfastened from the Patriots quarterback, Drake Maye, mid-throw. Uchenna Nwosu snatched it in stride and rumbled 45 yards to the top zone, sealing Seattle’s 29‑13 victory.
That the league’s prime protection was in a position to punctuate this second, greater than a decade within the making, with an interception because the Tremendous Bowl XLIX hero Malcolm Butler seemed on made the Seahawks’ revenge all of the sweeter. “They lived as much as the Darkish Aspect at this time,” the Seattle head coach, Mike Macdonald, mentioned of his protection. “It’s going to go down within the historical past books.”
It appears each nice Seahawks protection earns a slick nickname to match its popularity. At their 2010s peak, the Legion of Growth was the NFL’s most feared gang. This yr, the Darkish Aspect took up that mantle. Because the geek lore references counsel, each of these defenses proved tough, relentless and able to throw down at a second’s discover.
By retracing the Legion of Growth’s arc and claiming the grand prize, the Darkish Aspect is ready for a number of sequels, too. The Seahawks not solely have youth and cap house on their facet, but additionally continuity beneath their longtime common supervisor, John Schneider. His pace and ability in assembling a championship-caliber protection in Macdonald’s second yr, after gutting the roster right down to the studs, stands as one of many NFL’s all‑time renovations.
The teardown started in 2022, when Schneider shipped the quarterback Russell Wilson, linchpin of the franchise’s Tremendous Bowl win 12 years in the past, to Denver in alternate for the linebackers Boye Mafe and Derick Corridor, a 2023 draft choose that turned Witherspoon after which adopted it with a late-season commerce for the sort out Leonard Williams.
In 2024, Schneider made a fair more durable name, changing Pete Carroll, his collaborator in 137 common‑season wins and two Tremendous Bowl appearances, with Macdonald (then the Ravens’ defensive coordinator) in a transfer that bucked the pattern of hiring offensive assistants.
Schneider didn’t cease there, buying and selling for the linebacker Ernest Jones IV that very same yr whereas spending the crew’s first-round draft alternative on the standout College of Texas nostril sort out, Byron Murphy II. For a coup de grâce, in 2025, Schneider added the Professional Bowl move rusher DeMarcus Lawrence to supercharge Macdonald’s swarming defensive schemes.
“Even earlier than I received right here, Mike was doing particular issues with this crew, particular issues with this protection,” Lawrence mentioned within the run-up to the sport. “I used to be in a position to see it from afar. Now simply being right here and seeing the inventive thoughts he has, the best way he units us all as much as make performs and go hunt the quarterback, it’s really superb.”
Each transfer paid off on Sunday because the Darkish Aspect held New England scoreless into the fourth-quarter and hammered Maye 11 occasions – together with a brutal second‑quarter sack by the rookie defensive sort out Rylie Mills, a fifth-round choose from Notre Dame, with New England’s 310lb guard Jared Wilson caught squarely within the center. (On social media, many watching questioned whether or not “flogging a Drake” had grow to be a Tremendous Bowl ceremony.) The Seahawks restricted the league’s second-best scoring offense to its second‑lowest level whole of the season, whereas Maye, an everyday‑season MVP frontrunner, turned the ball over thrice and posted his third‑worst QB ranking of the yr.
The defensive effort – backed by a particular groups masterclass, an MVP efficiency from the operating again Kenneth Walker III and regular if unspectacular quarterback play from Sam Darnold – was simply probably the most lopsided defensive Tremendous Bowl showcase for the reason that Legion of Growth throttled Peyton Manning and the Broncos in February 2014. It decreased one more politically charged version of the spectacle, this one powered by Dangerous Bunny’s layered half‑time set, to a lavatory commonplace blowout.
Andy but, for all of the Darkish Aspect’s apparent comparisons to their forebears, they’ve been notably reluctant to commerce on that pedigree. Not like the Legion of Growth, which was studded with homegrown blue‑chip prospects, many on the present Seattle protection arrived with one thing to show, having been ignored and undervalued earlier than Schneider and Macdonald handed them to Aden Durde – himself a league long-shot from England.
The protection Julian Love, who spent years buried on the New York Giants’ depth chart earlier than Seattle snapped him up in 2023, rapidly emerged as a 100‑plus sort out pressure beneath Macdonald and Durde. Lawrence, lengthy among the many league’s premier move rushers, noticed his star dim in Dallas because the Cowboys protection reconfigured across the stud linebacker Micah Parsons.
When Lawrence joined the Seahawks final March, he appeared to take action with some reluctance and a contact of wistfulness about what he left behind. “Change of surroundings is all the time good,” he mentioned, “however Dallas is my dwelling. My household lives there. I’m ceaselessly gonna be there, however I do know for positive I’m not going to win a Tremendous Bowl there. So yeah. We right here.”
Final week, Williams revealed that he, Lawrence, Jones, and fellow sort out Jarran Reed – on his second Hawks tour after temporary stops in Kansas Metropolis and Inexperienced Bay – got here up with the Darkish Aspect nickname throughout a midseason bus experience. They needed to tell apart themselves from the Legion of Growth and leaned into the ominousness of Pacific Northwest winter vibes.
However their Star Wars reference doesn’t evoke the identical emotions New England’s nickname did. The Patriots of the Tom Brady-Invoice Belichick period have been likened to an Evil Empire on par with that of the New York Yankees. However beneath Maye and the top coach, Mike Vrabel, they’ve grow to be unusually Jedi‑like: principled, disciplined, and nearly likable in a manner that defies the previous narrative.
Seattle’s Darkish Aspect, in contrast, seems to be stacked with real Sith Lords who lead with emotion as they pound opponents into submission. However as a result of they’ve overcome a lot, not least the shadow of these previous Boston bullies, you possibly can’t assist however admire these new gridiron oppressors.
“That is the perfect crew we’ve confronted clearly this yr,” Vrabel mentioned of the Seahawks after the sport on Sunday. “We had a very, actually good yr and one which I’m happy with. This sport will not be a mirrored image of our yr. However we misplaced and have been beat, outcoached and outplayed. Give them the credit score.”
After an intense confetti bathe, the Seahawks cracked beers and puffed on cigars within the locker room – a marked distinction from 2014, once I witnessed them spendingthey spent the aftermath of their Tremendous Bowl win grumbling about failing to close out the Broncos. However this yr’s their victory this yr was a sunny scene for a gaggle that embraces the Darkish Aspect, and a transparent reminder that the nickname is generally for enjoyable – even when the distress they inflict on opponents nonetheless very a lot isn’t.
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