When Super Bowl 60 takes place tomorrow, February 8, it will feature two teams that not many experts had on their radar back in the preseason. In a true battle of East vs. West, the big game will feature the New England Patriots facing off against the Seattle Seahawks to determine this season’s champion.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to a defense that held the Pats scoreless for three quarters, the Seattle Seahawks captured their second Super Bowl title with a 29-13 win over the New England Patriots.
In a tale of two teams that were long shots to win the 2026 Super Bowl, it has been the two quarterbacks who have led the way.
In New England, you have young Drake Maye. Maye, who is in his second year with the Patriots, will be the second-youngest QB in NFL history to start a Super Bowl. On the heels of a 3-9 record as the Pats’ starter in 2024, Maye finished with a 14-3 mark in 2025. This kid is truly playing like a 10-year veteran, not an NFL sophomore who has started fewer than 30 regular-season games. Can the former North Carolina star lead New England to its seventh Super Bowl victory in team history — and its first in the post–Tom Brady era?
That answer is no.
Why? Sam Darnold and that Seattle defense, that’s why.
Darnold, the third overall selection with the New York Jets in the 2018 Draft, quickly became labeled a bust. Darnold is now proving he is far from a failure — he just had the bad luck of starting his career with teams that lacked talent at the time.
Darnold’s long-traveled career has seen him start in New York, then in Carolina, and then in San Francisco, but that was far from the end of the road.
Second-year Patriots QB Drake Maye, a former UNC Tarheel, looks to pluck Seattle’s defensive and offensive flock for the youngster’s first (perhaps of many) Super Bowl appearance.
After the Niners told him, in 2023, they no longer needed his services, Darnold landed in Minnesota in 2024, where he quickly showed he could get the job done.
Finishing 14-3 that season, the Vikings and their fans thought they may have had the QB who could not only lead them to a Super Bowl, but could also take rookie QB J.J. McCarthy under his wing.
The Vikings decided after one year not to offer Darnold a deal. That’s how he landed in Seattle in 2025. Proving 2024 was no fluke, Darnold led the Seahawks to a 14-3 record, No. 1 seed in the NFC, and now a Super Bowl berth. The former “can’t miss” QB in the NFL draft is proving that good things come to those who wait — and the Seahawks, not the Jets, Panthers, Niners, or Vikings, will reap the rewards.
My prediction is that Seattle wins the 2026 Super Bowl 31-20, and Sam Darnold proves he really was worthy of being drafted third overall back in 2018.
