Sam Darnold crowned his staggering comeback story with once-unthinkable glory, Aden Durde made British NFL history and the Seattle Seahawks became Super Bowl champions for the second time when they beat the New England Patriots 29-13 at Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara on Sunday.
It would all be fitting that Mike Macdonald’s No. 1-ranked scoring defense had the final, defining, masterclass statement of the 2025 NFL season, sacking Drake Maye six times and intercepting him twice while recovering a fumble in a suffocating performance against the second-year Patriots quarterback.
Uchenna Nwosu had a 44-yard interception return, Darnold threw a touchdown pass to AJ Barner, Jason Myers kicked a Super Bowl-record five field goals and Julian Love’s fourth-quarter pick snuffed out any threat of a Maye comeback.
Playing on his fifth team and in his eighth season, Darnold entered improbable football immortality as the third overall pick in 2018 buried his storied past and premature career obituaries to reach the pinnacle of football after signing a $100.5 million deal. with the organization last season.
Seahawks defensive coordinator and London’s own Durde, meanwhile, was about to become the first ever British-born coordinator to coach at a Super Bowl, the former London Warriors coach and founder of the league’s International Player Pathway program instrumental in masterminding Seattle’s ferocious ‘Dark Side’ defense.
Kenneth Walker starred on the ground with 135 rushing yards as he won the Super Bowl MVP, Derick Hall and Byron Murphy II recorded two sacks apiece and Darnold Byg needed to call on NFL receiving leader Jaxon Smith-Njigba as the defense ruled in California.
Bad Bunny made history as the first Latino and Hispanic artist to headline the Super Bowl halftime show as a solo act, illuminating Levi’s as a beacon of both California’s diversity and the NFL’s commitment to its global audience.
The Puerto Rican artist ended his performance by serenading the flag of Latin America with the words “The only thing stronger than hate is love” written on the big screen, a symbol of unity that comes at a time of heightened tensions across the United States amid concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
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New England quarterback Drake Maye had his second fumble of the game, with Seattle’s Uchenna Nwosu capitalizing when he ran in unopposed for a 44-yard touchdown.
Heads of State:
Seahawks
- Passed: Sam Darnold, 19/38, 202 yards, 1 TD
- Urgent: Kenneth Walker III, 27 carries, 135 yards
- Recipient: Cooper Kupp, 6 catches, 61 yards
Patriots
- Passed: Drake Maye, 27/43, 295 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs
- Urgent: Drake Maye, 5 catches, 37 yards
- Recipient: Mack Hollins, 4 catches, 78 yards, 1 TD
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New England quarterback Drake Maye somehow found Mack Hollins for a 35-yard touchdown, giving the Patriots late hope for a comeback.
Maye’s turnover streak, one of the few blemishes on his otherwise sparkling campaign, came back to haunt him late in the third quarter when he was sacked by Hall for surrendering possession.
Darnold was the one hand to punish his sophomore counterpart with a 16-yard touchdown strike to Barner, who had moved across the formation in a tight split formation before sneaking out on a corner route and breaking wide open to haul in his quarterback’s pass for a 19-0 lead with 13:24 left.
In the first sign of life from the Patriots offense all game, Maye attacked a tight window over the middle of the field with a beautifully placed dagger to Mack Hollins for a 24-yard gain. He then went back to his favorite splash-play target on the ensuing play with a back-shoulder pass to Hollins for a 35-yard touchdown, cutting the deficit to 19-7 with 12:27 left.
Suddenly, Maye and Josh McDaniels had sparked a spark, with the former seemingly growing in confidence until disaster struck when he was intercepted by Love at the Seahawks’ 27 with 8:49 left.
Then he gift-wrapped a pick-six that would epitomize Seahawks football at full-throttle and terrifying best, Devon Witherspoon scampering over the edge to prompt a Maye fumble that found the sharp hands of Nwosu, who tossed it back for a 44-yard house call.
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Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold found AJ Barner for a 16-yard touchdown as the Seahawks pulled ahead against the New England Patriots.
Maye’s closing remarks on a grueling day was a late consolation touchdown pass to Rhamondre Stevenson, but the damage was long since done. The third overall pick in 2024 had sought to become the first quarterback since Tom Brady in 2001 to win a Super Bowl in the same year as his NFL playoff debut.
Charlie Puth vocals were fused with a thundering Air Force aviator, beautiful pyrotechnics and a raucous ‘is this Seattle?’ crowd in a perfect Super Bowl cocktail before kickoff. Tom Brady’s arrival, among other Super Bowl MVPs including Joe Montana, had prompted an outburst of Patriots’ patriotism. Levi’s Stadium was boisterous, filled with unpredictability, an aura of mystery that swept over Santa Clara ahead of a huge game that few expected.
What followed was what many might have expected. A tight, dogged dual by two of the league’s leading defenses, with some physical Walker runs sprinkled in and three Myers field goals that gave Seattle a 9-0 halftime lead. Seattle quickly extended their kicking cushion through Myers’ 41-yard field goal at the end of a 10-play drive early in the second half.
The tone for a day of defense was underscored on the final drive of the second quarter when Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez broke up a would-be touchdown pass to Smith-Njigba on the edge of the end zone.
It was his second decisive break of the first half after a stunning pop-and-tip to deny the surging Rashid Shaheed on one of the few deep shots across the opening two stanzas.
The Patriots were largely nonexistent on offense in a first half in which Maye was sacked three times and recorded just 48 passing yards.
A loss denied the Patriots an NFL-record seventh Super Bowl title, while the Seahawks avenged their loss to New England in Super Bowl 49, which ended in Malcolm Butler’s iconic goal-line interception.
It closes the curtain on one of the most open NFL seasons in recent memory, and the Seahawks catapulted themselves to the top of the tree at the end of what, based on the odds, had been the most unlikely Super Bowl matchup in history.