Super Bowl LX sets up Patriots Seahawks rematch
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What happened during the NFL playoffs leading to Super Bowl LX?
The NFL playoffs are now in the books after a dramatic day of games over the weekend. We now know the New England Patriots will face off against the Seattle Seahawks for Super Bowl 60. What kind of drama can we expect to see on the field? Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, January 29th, 2026. Here to help us dig into all things NFL is USA Today senior NFL columnist, Jarrett Bell. Jarrett, thank you so much for coming on the show. Hi, Dana. How are you? I'm great. It's good to see you. So we had two very dramatic playoff games over the weekend, and now we've got the Pats versus the Seahawks. Let's talk about each team's strengths and weaknesses. Tell me about the Patriots, Jarrett.
Well, the Patriots are a young team that has just kind of come out of nowhere into a Super Bowl team under the direction of Mike Vrabel. Now, here's something that is just so interesting. Mike Vrabel is a former NFL player who played with the New England Patriots and was a teammate of Tom Brady's and was a key player in the previous Patriots Super Bowl reign. And now in his first year as head coach of the Patriots, he's going to the Super Bowl. So it's really a full circle moment for Vrabel in that sense, in terms of him really establishing himself in recent years as a really, really good NFL coach. He was head coach of the Tennessee Titans, and now he goes back to New England. And just one year, he takes them to a Super Bowl.
And if you talk to the players, and I was in their locker room in Denver after the victory in the AFC Championship game, and one player after another just really, really credited Mike Vrabel for the impact that he had on them individually. Now you take that and put it collectively, and that's why the Patriots are in the Super Bowl. And, oh, by the way, They've got a phenomenal young quarterback in Drake May, and you will hear a lot about him between now and the Super Bowl.
OK, so those are the Pats' strengths. What are their weaknesses?
I think you wonder about experience. You wonder about the offensive line holding up, especially against a Seattle defense. But, hey, they played against a Denver Broncos defense in a championship game that they were supposedly overmatched against, and they won that game. Before that, they played the Houston Texans in a great defense. They held up there. And in the opening playoff round, they played a Los Angeles Chargers defense that – supposedly, they were undermatched against. So all that to say, they are learning on the fly. But I think that's where you look at the Patriots and you say, okay, where is the soft spot? What's the matchup disadvantage for this team? And it is the young offensive line.
And maybe they can get a little bit more firepower on offense as well.
Okay, let's turn to the Seahawks. What are the team's strengths? And then we'll get into the weaknesses.
You know, the Seahawks, I think, are the most balanced team in the NFL. And by balance, I mean offense, defense, special teams.
What strengths do the New England Patriots bring to the Super Bowl?
They've got dynamic players all across the board. And then even when you break down, say, the offense, they've got balance between running and passing. They've got a quarterback, too, who's going to be a major storyline for the Super Bowl in Sam Darnold. Now, Sam Darnold, unlike Drake May in his second year, Sam Darnold has been around the NFL block for a few years. He's on his fifth team. And he's been knocked for not really living up to the status that he had coming into the NFL. Well, now surrounded by such a phenomenal supporting cast with the Seahawks, Sam Darnall is now in the Super Bowl. But I think the Seahawks' strength is definitely the balance that they have and led by an incredible defense.
And tell me their weaknesses.
Well, I tell you what, they haven't lost in a long time. So maybe that's a weakness. The Seahawks have no apparent weaknesses that you can point to and say, hey, this is a problem area. Just like the Patriots, the Seahawks were not in the playoffs last year. In fact, both of these teams were listed at like 60 to 1 odds to make it to the Super Bowl before the season.
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