The confetti has fallen at the AFC Championship Game in Denver and the NFC Championship Game in Seattle, and we now have our Super Bowl LX matchup: the AFC’s second-seeded New England Patriots against the NFC’s top-seeded Seattle Seahawks.
When the two teams take the field at Levi’s Stadium on Feb. 8, it will mark the first Super Bowl in NFL history in which both starting quarterbacks (the Patriots’ Drake Maye and the Seahawks’ Sam Darnold) and both head coaches (the Patriots’ Mike Vrabel and the Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald) are in either their first or second season with their respective teams, per CBS Sports Research.
Maye versus Darnold will also be just the third Super Bowl matchup in the past 40 years in which both quarterbacks entered the season with no playoff wins, joining the 1999 season’s Kurt Warner vs. Steve McNair and the 2021 season’s Matthew Stafford vs. Joe Burrow.
The Patriots franchise returned for its NFL-record 12th Super Bowl appearance as the first team to reach the big game after a 13-plus loss season. (New England went 4-13 in 2024.) The Seahawks broke through for their fourth Super Bowl appearance and first since Super Bowl XLIX against the Patriots in 2014.
New England made it rain in free agency, signing wide receiver Stefon Diggs, cornerback Carlton Davis, defensive lineman Milton Williams and edge rusher Harold Landry, while also drafting offensive lineman Will Campbell fourth overall. Those moves helped lift the Patriots back to the Super Bowl six seasons after Tom Brady’s departure to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Seattle also reshaped its roster, swapping out Geno Smith for Sam Darnold at quarterback, elevating Jaxon Smith-Njigba to the WR1 spot after trading DK Metcalf to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and signing Pro Bowl edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence and former Super Bowl MVP wide receiver Cooper Kupp in free agency. The changes helped the Seahawks reach Super Bowl heights once again.
So what will happen in Super Bowl LX between the Patriots and Seahawks? Enjoy an early breakdown and prediction to kick off your two-week wait for the big game.
Where to watch Super Bowl 2026
- Date: Sunday, Feb. 8 | Time: 6:30 p.m. ET
- Location: Levi’s Stadium (Santa Clara, California)
- TV: NBC | Stream: Fubo (try for free)
- Follow: CBS Sports App
- Odds: Seahawks -4.5, O/U 46.5 (via DraftKings Sportsbook)
The old adage that “defense wins championships” doesn’t always ring true, but it certainly has in the 2025 NFL season. Seattle finished with the league’s No. 1 scoring defense in the regular season (17.2 points per game), while New England wasn’t far behind, allowing 18.8 points per game, the fourth-fewest in the NFL.
New England played a bend-but-don’t-break style with the NFL’s eighth-best total defense, allowing just 295.2 yards per game. Seattle’s unit was led by both a top-10 pass rush (47 sacks, tied for the seventh-most) and a top-10 coverage group (77.9 passer rating allowed, fourth-best).
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald’s defense could pose a litany of problems for Maye, the Patriots’ 2025 second-team All-Pro quarterback, particularly when it comes to pass protection. Maye became the first quarterback ever to be sacked at least five times in three games in a single postseason, taking exactly five sacks in each AFC playoff game.
Having a leaky offensive line could doom him against 2025 second-team All-Pro defensive tackle Leonard Williams, Pro Bowl edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence, 2025 second-team All-Pro linebacker Ernest Jones and 2025 second-team All-Pro cornerback Devon Witherspoon. Patriots left tackle Will Campbell, the fourth overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, has endured plenty of rookie struggles in these playoffs. His three sacks allowed and nine quarterback pressures allowed are both the most in the NFL this postseason.
Darnold led the league in turnovers with 20 in the regular season, but like Patriots archnemesis Eli Manning in 2007, he’s found another level in the playoffs. Darnold has played turnover-free football through Seattle’s divisional round and NFC title game wins, throwing for 470 total yards and four touchdowns while completing 69.8% of his passes (37 of 53).
Now, he has a shot to complete a Manning-like path with a victory over the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Smith-Njigba, who led the NFL with 1,793 receiving yards in 2025, is clearly Seattle’s go-to target, but he’ll have a worthy adversary in Patriots Pro Bowl cornerback Christian Gonzalez in Super Bowl LX.
Early Super Bowl 2026 prediction
Maye and the Patriots winning three consecutive playoff games despite him absorbing five sacks in each one is a historic anomaly. Maye joined Tony Eason (1986) and Craig Krenzel (2004) as the only quarterbacks since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger to win three straight games while taking five or more sacks in each, per CBS Sports Research.
In Eason’s case, his three-game streak of luck — also with the Patriots –came to an end with a 31-7 regular-season loss to the Cincinnati Bengals after he took six sacks in Week 14 of the 1986 season. As for Krenzel, a 41-10 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Week 11 of the 2004 season followed his three-game run, and he took four sacks that day.
Maye overcoming that level of poor pass protection for a fourth straight game to emerge victorious would be a historic first, and that just won’t happen against the Seahawks’ No. 1 scoring defense. Seattle wins Super Bowl LX by multiple possessions.
Early pick: Seahawks 27, Patriots 13 | Seahawks -4.5, Under 46.5