Seahawks Dominate Patriots to Win Super Bowl 60 as NFL Fans Praise Walker, Darnold, Defense

The Seattle Seahawks are Super Bowl champions for the second time.

Seattle defeated the New England Patriots 29-13 in Sunday's Super Bowl at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, to take home its first Lombardi Trophy since the 2013 campaign. It also prevented the Patriots from winning what would have been an NFL-record seventh Super Bowl title in the process.

And it did so in large part because of its relentless defense that overwhelmed Maye with six sacks, two interceptions and a lost fumble with the last turnover returned for a touchdown by Uchenna Nwosu.

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In fact, neither team scored a touchdown until the fourth quarter when Sam Darnold and Maye exchanged touchdown passes to AJ Barner and Mack Hollins. Yet the difference was Seattle had Kenneth Walker III (135 rushing yards) and that lockdown defense.

It was an all-time defensive performance, and the Seahawks drew plenty of praise for their championship:

New England's Super Bowl XLIX victory over Seattle was most famous for Malcolm Butler's interception at the goal line, but it started with both offenses going back and forth as they combined for 28 points in the second quarter alone.

Sunday's rematch was nothing like that out of the gates.

In fact, New England didn't score a single point in the first half, while Seattle wasn't much better on offense with zero touchdowns and three field goals on the way to a 9-0 advantage. The two teams combined for eight punts before intermission with the highlights largely being from two of the best defenses in the league.

Christian Gonzalez made two incredible plays to break up a deep ball to Rashid Shaheed and another potential touchdown to Jaxon Smith-Njigba. On the other side, Seattle sacked Maye three times in the first half and stifled every Patriots' possession.

Walker was the only offensive bright spot for either team in the opening two quarters as he got around the edge on multiple runs and picked up difficult yardage between the tackles.

But Seattle couldn't parlay it into anything more than a handful of field goals going up against a similarly formidable Patriots defense well into the second half.

Life got more even difficult for that Seahawks offense when Smith-Njigba temporarily exited in the third quarter with a head injury, but it reached a point that it didn't matter what Seattle's offense did given the defensive performance from the NFC representative.

Derick Hall's strip-sack of Maye put the Seahawks deep in New England territory late in the third quarter, and they, at long last, turned it into the game's first touchdown when Darnold found Barner.

New England showed a brief sign of life when Maye hit Hollins and got the ball back with the chance to cut it to a one-score deficit, but he responded with one of the worst throws of his season and was picked off by Julian Love.

That was just the start of Maye's woes, as the celebration was on for Seattle as Nwosu sprinted to the end zone.