Happy Super Bowl week. This season’s biggest game features familiar teams and new faces. The New England Patriots have made the Super Bowl for a record 12th time, and the Seattle Seahawks are in for the fourth time. For the most part, though, this will be unfamiliar territory for the current players. For the Patriots, only five players have Super Bowl experience. For the Seahawks, it\u2019s four. The Seahawks are entering as 4.5-point favorites, and bettors are backing Seattle. But there are a few things that I think people are playing prisoner to the moment as they project this Super Bowl. So let’s get into the nitty-gritty. This is “Sound Smart,” where we prepare you each week with observations from the\u00a0NFL news cycle. If I do my job, you\u2019ll be fluent in the league\u2019s most important topics. 1. IF THERE\u2019S ONE THING YOU SHOULD KNOW AHEAD OF THE SUPER BOWL, IT\u2019S THAT \u2026. Don’t be surprised if the two Super Bowl quarterbacks make a mess of the postseason narrative. (OR: We are overestimating Sam Darnold and underestimating Drake Maye.) Sam Darnold is fresh off the best game of his life. That\u2019s not hyperbole. In a duel against the Rams, Darnold played out of his mind against pass-rush pressure \u2014 and in a highly pressurized situation. The L.A. defense had a knack for making Darnold look like total crap, after all. But Darnold rose to the occasion in a way we\u2019ve never seen him do before. And he did it despite an oblique injury that largely held him out of practice. That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean he can do it again. I\u2019d like to think Darnold has changed \u2014 forever. That he\u2019ll never again see ghosts. That he\u2019ll never again throw four interceptions in a game. But remember: He did exactly that just 10 games ago. And just two games ago, the Patriots intercepted Texans QB C.J. Stroud four times. (And they made Chargers QB Justin Herbert look terrible in the wild-card round. (And obviously, Broncos backup Jarrett Stidham looked like a hapless backup in the AFC Championship Game.) This Patriots defense is smart. The unit is a bear trap, just hoping to snag Darnold\u2019s leg. He\u2019s a tremendous story. He\u2019s a good dude. And he has helped caution teams and media members from prematurely labeling a player “a bust.” It\u2019s a wonderful narrative, and it’s important. But we can\u2019t be sure it\u2019ll have a wonderful ending \u2014 just because that’s neat and tidy for America. Maybe Darnold has changed. But we should entertain the idea that Mike Vrabel could outsmart the sometimes erratic Seahawks quarterback. And then there\u2019s Drake Maye, who has landed on the opposite end of the spectrum. Maye built his MVP campaign and the Patriots\u2019 regular-season success upon his rare efficiency throwing downfield. The second-year pro led the league in yards per attempt (8.9) and completion percentage (72%), a logic-defying set of complementary statistics. But in the postseason against elite defenses (like the one he\u2019ll see in the Super Bowl), Maye has regressed. Through three postseason games, he has completed just 34.6% of his downfield passes (9-of-26) and has gone 0-for-7 on downfield passes into tight windows, per Next Gen Stats. New England’s offense can’t reach the same parts of the field \u2014 they’re not as explosive or as threatening. The Patriots QB has tried to compensate with his legs \u2014 generating first downs on the ground. And that has helped enough to get wins for New England against teams with lesser offenses. But Maye has been limited by a right shoulder injury. Plus, he missed practice due to illness on Friday. The Seahawks’ defense was the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL. And even if the Patriots can figure out how to score, Seattle’s offense is proficient enough to win in a shootout. We saw that last week. If you look at what Maye has done in the playoffs so far, you\u2019d think he and the Patriots can’t handle a shootout. If you look at what Maye did in the regular season, you\u2019d think he could. The Patriots will need to figure out how to get Maye and the offense to recapture their regular-season magic. Or else. With Darnold, you have a really good player who will occasionally play the worst game you’ve ever seen. With Maye, you have a regular-season MVP candidate whose defense has helped him enormously in the playoffs. Which version of those fascinating quarterbacks will show up on Super Bowl Sunday? 2. HE SAID WHAT?! At this time last week, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said he\u2019d “watched like five plays” from the Patriots. So you can bet it was a busy week for him. I think this is an interesting piece of perspective about how the Super Bowl works \u2014 and maybe why both teams get so much time to prepare for it. These teams have not seen each other since September 2024. Macdonald was coaching that Seahawks team, but he was coaching against a completely different Patriots team. Even at quarterback, where Jacoby Brissett started over Maye. New England underwent a full-scale rebuild when it hired Mike Vrabel in January 2025, turning over the roster and the coaching staff and building around Maye, whom the Patriots drafted two years ago. Macdonald has been in Seattle for only two years and Darnold is in his first season. These two organizations have embraced full-scale change on a similar two-year horizon. The teams had scouts at each other\u2019s games. Their pro scouting departments had started the process. But the coaching staffs sometimes don’t turn the page until they\u2019ve won their conference championship game. Then it\u2019s a full sprint. The Seahawks haven\u2019t had to do this yet this postseason. Both their opponents were division rivals where the matchup was their third of the year. And not only did Macdonald admit that he hadn\u2019t gotten into the Patriots film. He also admitted he was planning to get on the phone with coaches like John Harbaugh to pick their brains about how the Super Bowl week should get laid out \u2014 and how he should design and install Seattle’s game plan. Everything is a little different in Super Bowl week. The bye week adds more time. The logistics eat away at that time. (Players will spend time getting tickets for loved ones, bussing around a busy city to get to practice and media obligations, attending marketing and other money-making opportunities.) Even the halftime is unusually long, given there\u2019s an abridged concert. Coaches have to figure out not just how to keep these things from becoming distractions but also how to make some of these oddities work\u00a0for them. 3. TEN THINGS I THINK I THINK ABOUT \u2026 The NFL hiring and firing cycle. 1. Seahawks OC Klint Kubiak (and projected Raiders head coach) was the most impressive offensive coordinator in the league this season \u2014 after Patriots OC Josh McDaniels.\u00a0Kubiak should be outstanding in coaching up Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza, the projected No. 1 overall pick. 2. New Giants coach John Harbaugh made a great first impression on QB Jaxson Dart. “Jax loves him! He\u2019s excited!” Dart\u2019s father, Brandon, texted me. The Dart-Harbaugh tandem should surprise folks next year in the NFC East. 3. Joe Brady pulled the Bills out of a tailspin. Firing Sean McDermott was the right thing to do, but the messaging got convoluted \u2014 and Bills owner Terry Pegula came away looking foolish. But in his introductory presser, Brady made a strong impression. 4. Brady would be wise to make heavy use of his newly-hired OC, Pete Carmichael from the Broncos. Carmichael comes from the Sean Payton coaching tree and should help push the Bills back into more vertical passing. (Brady was infamous for his obsession with the WR screen game, but that might have been out of necessity due to weak personnel at that position.) “[Carmichael] was more behind the scenes [in Denver],” a Broncos source told me. “I know the QBs really loved him. He\u2019s a great guy and smart.” 5. This Eagles\u2019 offensive coordinator search had some red flags. Multiple Philly OC candidates withdrew their names from consideration or took other jobs: Mike McDaniel, LSU OC Charlie Weis Jr., Bears OC Declan Doyle, Bobby Slowik and Zac Robinson. It says something that the Eagles struggled to find a coordinator for this Super Bowl-winning team that features Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. 6. The Eagles landed on Sean Mannion, who was a backup quarterback as recently as 2023 and rose quickly with the Packers. He did wonders with Jordan Love in Green Bay, where they ran an efficiency-based passing attack. That offensive philosophy worked well for the Eagles in 2024 on their Super Bowl run. 7. Sam Darnold and J.J. McCarthy appear to have gotten Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah fired. It was hard to come back from moving on from Darnold (now in the Super Bowl!) and committing to McCarthy (empirically the worst starter in the NFL last year). And it seemed like the GM\u00a0almost did. But on Jan. 30, the Vikings let him go \u2014 which is an awfully late point in the offseason. But it seems like, after conversations with coach Kevin O\u2019Connell,\u00a0the GM wasn\u2019t on the same page moving forward. (That makes me think McCarthy is just about finished in Minnesota.) 8. Mike McDaniel, Justin Herbert and Jim Harbaugh are the perfect match \u2014 or a disaster. Stylistically, McDaniel and Harbaugh are on opposite sides of the spectrum, from their clothes to their play designs to their mannerisms. McDaniel is creative. He’s focused on what\u2019s new and is a little eccentric. He’s also obsessed with speed. Harbaugh is a traditionalist who loves to pound the rock. This could be awesome: ying and yang. This could also be terrible. I\u2019m pulling up a front-row seat, because Herbert\u2019s prime years are on the line. 9. New Ravens coach Jesse Minter hired former Bears assistant Declan Doyle as offensive coordinator \u2014 and Ben Johnson’s coaching tree has its first apple to fall. Minter appears to be an elite young defensive mind. He’ll take care of that side of the ball. Can Doyle help on offense with Lamar Jackson? Hopefully, Doyle had enough time to soak up Johnson’s magic. 10. The Broncos firing OC Joe Lombardi seemed to be about retaining Davis Webb. Webb might be the Bills’ offensive coordinator right now, if Sean Payton hadn\u2019t promoted him from offensive pass game coordinator and quarterbacks coach to OC. In\u00a0Sound Smart, we’re diving deeper and thinking outside the box about the week that was in NFL action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Happy Super Bowl week. This season’s biggest game features familiar teams and new faces. The New England Patriots have made the Super Bowl for a record 12th time, and the Seattle Seahawks are in for the fourth time. For the most part, though, this will be unfamiliar territory for the current players. For the Patriots,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}