• Kenneth Walker takes home Super Bowl MVP honors: The fourth-year back finished with 135 of Seattle’s 335 total net yards on 27 carries. Seven of those carries moved the chains, and he forced eight missed tackles while averaging 3.3 yards after contact. New England hadn’t allowed a rusher to top 128 yards in a game since Week 18 of the 2023 season, yet Walker reached that mark on the biggest of stages.

• New England did little to help Drake Maye: Maye threw just one screen all night, and it came with 12 seconds left in the fourth quarter. His average time to throw finished at 3.08 seconds, with 22 of his throws coming at 2.6 seconds or longer compared to just 21 under 2.6 seconds. He was rolled out of the pocket once all game and was asked to operate from a straight dropback 44 times. Play action showed up on only six of his 53 dropbacks — a 11.3% rate that sat well below his 24% usage over the full season.

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The Seattle Seahawks defense didn’t leave much to debate in Super Bowl 60.

From the opening drive on, Seattle overwhelmed New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye and refused to let the game breathe, cruising to a 29–13 win behind one of the most dominant defensive performances in recent memory. Seven sacks, two interceptions and a forced fumble told the story of a night where Maye rarely had a chance to set his feet, let alone settle in.

Now that the curtain has finally fallenon the 2025 NFL season and the league’s attention is already shifting toward the draft, here are five early takeaways from a Super Bowl that was decided almost entirely at the line of scrimmage.

Editor’s note: All grades and stats in this article are the product of PFF’s first run of analysis. Grades and stats will be reviewed using All-22 film, and the finalized dataset will be unlocked tomorrow at noon.

Kenneth Walker III did everything he needed to — and rightly took home Super Bowl MVP

If this game was going to tilt decisively in Seattle’s favor, it was always going to require Walker to make a meaningful contribution. He delivered precisely that.

The fourth-year back finished with 135 of Seattle’s 335 total net yards on 27 carries, consistently putting the offense in manageable situations and preventing the Patriots from ever getting the game to tilt back in their favor. Seven of those carries moved the chains, and he forced eight missed tackles while averaging 3.3 yards after contact.

What stood out was how often Walker turned otherwise ordinary runs into meaningful gains. He totaled 93 yards on runs of 10 or more yards, providing the offense with just enough explosiveness to complement a game plan that didn’t ask for much risk. That production came against a Patriots run defense that entered the Super Bowl ranked ninth in EPA allowed per rush and was giving up just 4.1 yards per carry and 2.7 yards after contact per carry on the season.

It also wasn’t a defense that had been prone to giving up big individual rushing performances. New England hadn’t allowed a rusher to top 128 yards in a game since Week 18 of the 2023 season, yet Walker reached that mark on the biggest of stages.

Both teams brought pressure, but the results couldn’t have been more different

Both defenses delivered pressure in this game, even if it showed up differently on the stat sheet. On an initial review of the game film — with grades and finalized data set to be released at 12 p.m. ET on Monday, Feb. 9 — both Drake Maye and Sam Darnold were pressured at meaningful rates.

Maye was pressured on 14 of his 53 dropbacks (26.4%), while Sam Darnold faced pressure on 15 of his 40 dropbacks (37.5%). According to the first run of PFF analysis, New England technically got home more often, but Seattle handled those moments far better.

Darnold was able to get 13 throws off on his pressured dropbacks, completing five for 56 yards and his lone touchdown of the night. He took one sack, moved the chains four additional times and had a drop that would have further improved the line. He also scrambled once for 11 yards and a first down, forcing a missed tackle in the process. All told, he finished with a 77.7 passer rating under pressure and a 65.6 PFF grade.

Maye’s night under pressure went in the opposite direction. He attempted six passes, completing two for 39 yards with an interception, while taking six sacks. He recorded a turnover-worthy play (the interception), moved the chains three times and added two scrambles for just 10 yards. His PFF grade in those situations came to 50.1.

That difference is evident in efficiency. Seattle’s passing offense averaged 0.042 EPA per pressured dropback — roughly in line with a mid-pack passing offense over the regular season. New England’s passing offense, by contrast, generated -1.362 EPA per pressured pass play — more than a full point worse per snap than the worst passing offense in the league during the 2025 regular season (-0.242).

New England did little to help Drake Maye

Given how consistently the Seahawks were able to generate pressure, it never felt like New England adjusted in a meaningful way to ease the burden on Drake Maye. There were few attempts to change launch points, speed up decisions or manufacture easy completions.

The Patriots quarterback threw just one screen pass all night, and it came with 12 seconds left in the fourth quarter. His average time to throw finished at 3.08 seconds, with 22 of his throws coming at 2.6 seconds or longer compared to just 21 under 2.6 seconds. He was rolled out of the pocket once all game and was asked to operate from a straight dropback 44 times. Play action showed up on only six of his 53 dropbacks — a 11.3% rate that sat well below his 24% usage over the full season.

When you isolate those situations — straight dropbacks, throws of 2.6 seconds or longer, no screens and no play action — the results are telling. Maye completed eight of 15 attempts for 123 yards, a touchdown and an interception, while taking four sacks and earning a 40.7 PFF passing grade. Those were the snaps where the offense offered the least amount of help, and they predictably produced the worst outcomes.

On the other sideline, Seattle made a point to vary the picture. Sam Darnold used play action on 10 of his 40 dropbacks, rolled out five times and got the ball out in 2.5 seconds or less on 18 of those dropbacks.

The contrast wasn’t about aggressiveness or play-calling ambition — it was about giving the quarterback answers when protection broke down.

A defensive performance for the history books

We’ve seen plenty of dominant Super Bowl defenses over the years, but this Seahawks performance belongs in that conversation. On an initial review, Seattle allowed -0.329 EPA per play, which — if it holds after final checks — would rank as the third-best Super Bowl defensive performance since 2006. Only the 2006 Colts and the 2015 Panthers were more efficient by that measure.

That also puts it narrowly ahead of the Seahawks’ own Legion of Boom unit from 2013, which finished at -0.312 EPA per play.

The efficiency held up regardless of the situation. Seattle allowed -0.344 EPA per pass, the third-best mark by a Super Bowl defense since 2006, and -0.269 EPA per run, which still ranks eighth over that same span.

The way Seattle got there matters, too. The Seahawks ran a pass stunt on 45.3% of their pass-rush snaps, the third-highest rate in a Super Bowl among games with available data. They didn’t need to blitz heavily — just 12 blitzes on the night — but when pressure arrived, it was decisive. Seattle converted 42.9% of its total pressures into sacks, an unusually high rate, and finished with seven sacks, three quarterback hits and 14 additional hurries.

Christian Gonzalez quietly kept the Patriots afloat

The final score doesn’t reflect how well Christian Gonzalez played. If not for several plays he made on the outside, this game could have gotten away from New England much earlier than it did. In a night where the Seahawks largely controlled the tempo, Gonzalez was one of the few Patriots defenders who consistently held his ground and limited damage.

Gonzalez was targeted seven times in coverage and allowed three receptions for 36 yards. More importantly, he broke up three passes, all of them legitimate wins at the catch point. One of those was close to turning into an interception — not quite a true takeaway chance, but close enough to matter. Throws into his coverage produced a passer rating of just 59.2.