The silver Lombardi Trophy sits on a silver platter for Mike Vrabel, Drake Maye, and New England’s Soldiers of Good Fortune. Standing between the Patriots and an improbable, enchanted Super Bowl-winning season is Sam Darnold.
To quote inimitable Red Sox announcer emeritus Joe Castiglione: Can you believe it?
Winning a championship game is never easy. Still, this Super Bowl LX matchup with the Seahawks at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 8 feels like a reprieve and another best-case scenario for the fated footballers of Foxborough. They dodged the Rams’ Super Bowl-winning coach/quarterback combo of Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford. McVay has coached in a pair of Super Bowls. He was on the losing end the last time the Patriots advanced to the Big Game. Stafford paced the NFL in passing yards (4,707) and touchdown passes (46), and is Maye’s chief competition for NFL MVP.
The remarkable cavalcade of unexceptional, unreliable playoff quarterbacks continues for the Patriots. That should warm your heart while you’re digging out from the snowstorm that blanketed our region and forced the newly minted AFC champion Patriots to stay the night in Denver following their 10-7 AFC Championship game victory on Sunday. Even better, the Patriots have the fuel of being doubted by the football public. The Patriots opened as 3½-point underdogs, according to Boston-based DraftKings Sportsbook.
The Patriots and the Seahawks staged one of the greatest Super Bowls ever — Super Bowl XLIX, punctuated by Malcolm Butler’s interception for the ages. That was a clash of the titans to cap the 2014 season.
As for this rematch: It’s the bizarro Super Bowl that America didn’t have on its bingo card in September.
The defensively dominant Patriots will try to reclaim the Gridiron Throne just 25 miles from where New England’s patron saint of Super Bowls, Tom Brady, grew up in San Mateo. That would leave them as the NFL’s only seven-time Super Bowl champs.
“We’ll have to get a lot of things corrected, and we’ll have to play our best football game in two weeks if we want to finish champions,” said coach/revivalist Vrabel.
Darnold and the NFC champs punched their ticket with a very different victory than the Patriots’ offensively desiccated triumph in Denver. In front of their vociferous fans in Seattle, they outgunned and outlasted LA, 31-27.
Suddenly Good Sam would be the least decorated non-backup QB to lift the Lombardi since Brad Johnson in 2002. Darnold piloted the Seahawks to the NFC’s No. 1 seed, but he also led the NFL in turnovers (20). The Patriots lead the NFL in turnovers forced this postseason with eight.
This is the same Sam Darnold, at least in name if not spirit, who experienced paranormal activity in the pocket against the Patriots as a youngster playing for the Jets. Back in 2019, Darnold was caught on mic during a 33-0 “Monday Night Football” beatdown at the hands of Bill Belichick and Brady, saying, “I’m seeing ghosts.” Darnold threw four interceptions in that loss.
Perhaps, the only resurrection more impressive than that of the Patriots after back-to-back 4-13 seasons is that of Darnold. Both Darnold and Maye were No. 3 overall picks. Their career paths couldn’t be any more divergent.
At age 23, Crazy Legs Maye is slated to be the second-youngest quarterback to start a Super Bowl, trailing only Dan Marino. The Seahawks are Darnold’s fifth team since entering the league in 2018.
Darnold isn’t all that’s blocking the Patriots from a magical season for the ages. Seattle is a deep and talented team.
The Seahawks boast silky smooth wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who led the NFL in receiving yards with 1,793. JSN, as he’s known, torched the Rams on Sunday for 10 catches for 153 yards and a score. And Kenneth Walker is a dynamic running back.
The most formidable part of the Seahawks, though, is the NFL’s No. 1 scoring defense (17.2 points per game). Coach Mike Macdonald’s baby, the Seahawks haven’t allowed a 100-yard rusher in 28 straight games. The descendants of the Legion of Boom, now known as the “Dark Side” defense, ranked first in the league in third-down conversion rate allowed (32.1 percent).
Vrabel’s Patriots will face another hallowed defensive unit after eliminating the Chargers, Texans, and Broncos. Making just enough plays, Maye is already the first quarterback in NFL history to score victories over three top-five defenses (measured by yards per game) in one playoff run. The Seahawks rank sixth, just behind the Chargers, at 285.9 yards per game.
But New England’s No Respect defense is on a Joe Flacco-like postseason tear. It has outplayed all of those more celebrated defenses, allowing 26 points in three games and holding teams to 209.7 yards per game.
Facing the Seahawks is just one more chance for them to be offended before they defend their derrières off.
“It was always whoever [we were playing]. They talked about the Texans’ defense. This week it was all about the Broncos’ defense,” said Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez. “I think it has shown that we get that chip on our shoulder.
“It’s cool. It’s great if you want to count us out, because we’re just going to go out there and show what we can do, play team defense, and get the ball back to 10 [Maye].”
Despite the fact that the Patriots (28.8 points per game) and the Seahawks (28.4) rank Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, in scoring during the regular season, this stacks up as another defensive-minded struggle.
But the Patriots have proven they can find a way to win when style points — and points in general — are in short supply. They have scored 54 points in their three playoff games. According to the NFL, that’s the fewest points scored by a team that won three games to advance to the Super Bowl, breaking the record of the 2000 Ravens.
“We went against the top defenses in the league for the past couple of weeks,” said Patriots wide receiver/hype man Stefon Diggs. “It was easy to count us out during the regular season and to give a million excuses as to why not [us]. But here we are — standing firm as a team and as a unit, banding together and finding ways to win. It’s hard to find ways to win, especially in the postseason.”
They have to win one more game against Darnold to be Super Bowl champions and be remembered forever.
That’s a sentence and a story no one envisioned being written.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com. Follow him @cgasper and on Instagram @cgaspersports.