Winter Warriors and Ghostbusters
Super Bowl LX. Patriots versus Seahawks. This time, just run the ball.
Oh goodie: a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX. And here I slaughtered all the brain cells devoted to Malcolm Butler and the myriad tactical and philosophical debates surrounding this play …
… with a combination of whiskey, cannabis and TikTok just a few weeks ago.
I am certain several of my colleagues will rehash that unforgettable moment over the next two weeks, complete with interviews with Butler and other principal characters, plus 8-by-10 color glossy GIFs with circles and arrows and a paragraph explaining all of the tactics involved. I am just as certain that I will not read a word of it. No one cares. Not even Patriots fans; after all, that particular victory is a footnote when compared to events like 28-3.
Now that we’ve settled that, let’s break down Sunday’s conference championship games. Then I will undermine this introduction by waxing poetic about the Legion of Boom and the Patriots legacy.
NFC Championship Spotlight: Seattle Seahawks 31, Los Angeles Rams 27
What Happened
It was a back-and-forth battle between evenly-matched, familiar rivals. It was a masterpiece marred by a little wonky officiating. It was an exorcism for one of the NFL’s most maligned quarterbacks. It was a triumph of little advantages: special teams, third-down efficiency, clock management.
The first half felt like two Tour de France cyclists, competitors for the yellow jersey, taking turns drafting for each other after pulling away from the peloton. (You know football season is almost over when I start breaking out the cycling analogies.)
Sam Darnold found Rashid Shaheed streaking up the left sideline to set up a Kenneth Walker touchdown run on the Seahawks’ first possession. The Rams chipped away with field goal drives, then appeared to seize momentum when Sean McVay drew up a coverage-bewildering swing-pass touchdown for Kyren Williams, followed by a defensive stop with 1:33 to play in the second quarter. The Rams offense went three-and-out in just 39 seconds, however.
Darnold connected with a leaping Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the middle of the field for 42 yards in the waning seconds before halftime. The Seahawks then unveiled some coverage-bewildering wrinkles of their own, hiding JSN in the backfield and letting him weave uncovered through traffic until he was wide open in the back of the end zone. The Seahawks led 17-13 when halftime finally arrived.
The Rams special teams entered Sunday having gone several weeks without a catastrophe. Xavier Smith reset that clock to zero by muffing a punt early in the third quarter. Dareke Young recovered the muff at the Rams 17 yard line, setting up a Darnold-to-Jake Bobo touchdown strike.
Seahawks victories often turn into routs after sequences like that, but Matthew Stafford answered emphatically, firing deep passes to Colby Parkinson and Davante Adams to set up a short toss to Adams that cut the Seahawks lead to four.
Everything clicked for the Seahawks offense on the next drive. Walker. Smith-Njigba. Other, non-JSN receivers. The blocking. Klint Kubiak’s playcalling. Even Darnold! Nine plays, 65 yards, a razor blade of a touchdown catch-and-dive by Cooper Kupp, another two-score Seahawks lead.
The Seahawks appeared to stop the Rams on the next series, but Riq Woolen got flagged for taunting the Rams sideline after breaking up a third-and-long pass to Puka Nacua. It was a call that only Rams fans and dogmatic, picayune, bureaucracy-loving former middle school hall monitors could love, and I don’t know many of either. (Then again, the Seahawks got away with a blatant facemask foul on a Stafford sack which would have given them a first down in the red zone earlier in the game, so that’s football.) Woolen got dusted by a Puka stutter-step on the next play for a 34-yard touchdown.
A promising Seahawks series stopped near midfield when Kamren Kinchens blasted through the middle of the line on a blitz for a nine-yard sack and Cobie Durant swatted a possible third-down conversion away from Shaheed.
The Rams got the ball at their own 10-yard line and matriculated down the field as they had all afternoon. Parkinson dropped a threaded touch pass on third-and-short, but Stafford wrestled with Tank Lawrence until they were past the sticks on a fourth-down scramble. The Seahawks defense sniffed out a screen to the left, so Stafford slung a drive-and-dish pass to Nacua in the right flat for a first down.
Once again, however, the Seahawks defense stepped up late in a series, with Devon Witherspoon breaking up end-zone passes on third and fourth downs. The Rams would finish 1-of-8 on third downs; the Seahawks 7-of-13.
The Seahawks took possession at their own six-yard line with 4:54 to play. Let the record forever show that Sam Darnold – THE Sam Darnold – completed a checkdown to Walker that netted 15 yards, then a seven-yard pass to Kupp on third-and-7 (Kupp lost the football while reaching for that extra yard, but the catch stood), and finally a 14-yard pass to Smith-Njigba, eating up over four minutes and burning the Rams’ final timeouts. Stafford’s final drive ended when officials ruled that Nacua was tackled in bounds by Witherspoon at the end of a 21-yard completion.
Darnold finished with 346 yards and three touchdowns. Those tired old ghosts can finally rest in peace.
Seattle Seahawks: Aura Farming
The Legion of Boom. Beast Mode. DangerRuss. Back in the early 2010s – the last time casual fans and normies had any reason to pay real attention to them – the Seattle Seahawks were more like a superhero squad than a football team. We’re talking 1990s, Image-comics style superheroes: brash, over-the-top personalities; an endearing edginess that grew tiresome after the first story arc.
The Legion of Boom Seahawks had attitude. Like the 1985 Bears, they weren’t the best team of their era, but they may have been the team that best defined their era. They had cultural impact. Their quarterback married an R&B diva. Their top cornerback became the NFL’s self-proclaimed poet laureate. One of their defensive linemen became an important sociopolitical figure for a moment. And their running back became the Jim McMahon of his era, an indomitable individualist too rebellious for a cause.
The Legion of Boom Seahawks, in short, had Mount Rushmore-worthy aura. The current Seahawks, for all their success and on-field excellence, were the third most interesting team in the NFC West. And that was only after Kyler Murray got hurt.
Leonard Williams and Demarcus Lawrence are fine defenders, but I don’t know (and may not want to know) their positions on current events. If Devon Witherspoon pontificates on life, the universe and everything, it never reaches my news feed. Kenneth Walker has never gone on a media strike, and few would notice if he did. Jaxon Smith-Njigba won’t even quote Kierkegaard on Instagram or go on midseason walkabout like a normal WR1. Is anyone dating a Grammy winner? It sure ain’t the quarterback; he’s engaged to a lady named Katie Hoofnagle. I’m sure she’s a peach, but there will never be a celebrity named Hoofnagle.
