Game 1 Starts With Super Bowl Rematch of The Best NFC and AFC teams This Century

Ever since the Patriots won the wild Super Bowl in the last seconds over Seattle in 2015, the Seahawks have been on an undefeated streak in their meetings against the Patriots. Does the tide turn yet again as a result of a Super Bowl moment? The Seahawks hold an all time 12-9 record over the Patriots since 1977.

Their first meeting in 1977 opened with a sloppy mess of rain in New England that may as well have started in a giant bathtub. The Patriots tore the Seahawks apart with a 31-0 decimation that concerned President Jimmy Carter into warning the National Guard to stand by their phones just in case. It is never a good day when an offense has more turnovers than points. Seattle’s 5 turnovers are just plain sad. Fortunately, that embarrassment was almost fifty years ago and nobody would ever remember something like that enough to post it online.

Instead, we are now moving to a fresh start and a new bright, sunny day where the Patriots can finally lose Super Bowls and the Seahawks can happily be forgotten. Possibly taking a page out of the Belichick/Brady plan, the Seahawks seem to depend heavily on their poker faces winning games for them. Darnold, who was known for seeing ghosts, has become something of a ghost himself in his rising trajectory.

It is easy to see New England as distracted and Seattle as a hangover. Defensive champions tend to have a hard time returning to the Super Bowl, even though they tend to play better than teams that win through emphasizing the offense. Seattle Seahawks have a long season ahead of them in which every week seems like a playoff week from the perspective of their opponents. That mix can be a frustrating and exhausting challenge. But the same is true of the New England Patriots. It is difficult to return after losing a Super Bowl, no matter how they won previously. Everyone knows they can be beaten, because they have been beaten. During the Super Bowl, the Patriots were battered.

So do the Patriots want revenge? Certainly. Do they need it? Probably. Will they get it? That is hard to tell. The Seahawks were forced to make changes. One of them meant saying goodbye to the Super Bowl’s MVP, Kenneth Walker III. They did replace him early in the draft. But, more than that, they are holding strong and letting people disrespect them.

The Seahawks are like watching Denzel Washington’s acting career. They are cool, calm, and collected. They are awesome to see. They are likeable and quiet with reasonable answers. But just when it seems like they should not be doing another great thing, here they come again they surprise slightly by getting things more right than it feels like they should be. The twenty first century has been kind to the Seahawks, who so far have appeared in at least one Super Bowl each decade of the century so far. They also are the conference leaders in most wins since 2000. So have the Patriots.

The NFL chose a great game to kickoff the season. By the start of the morning tomorrow, someone will look like a victorious king returning to rule his kingdom with celebration. The other team will continue to be strong and look to make strategic corrections to keep the game interesting.

The stakes are not likely the highest in this week’s opening matchups. However, they are interesting and good for conversation for late week appreciation about the return of football. With the Bills and Dolphins experimenting with new head coaches, and the Jets trying to break out of a rhythm of disappointment in a rough community, the Patriots can feel some comfort in returning to the playoffs. However, those factors can be tricky. All of the teams have the talent and the Seahawks showed the NFL the formula to beat New England. Beating them again could shift some of the power that the Patriots have.

That said, one of the interesting notes about the Patriots is the fact that they are more of a team without stars than even during the early years of the Brady era. It almost takes an AI search to remember that Drake Maye is the starting quarterback. Mike Vrabel seems to have more  star power by being known as an offseason topic than any other member on the team. Just like the Seahawks, that seems to be the way the Patriots sort of want it. While Seattle Seahawks are doing a better job working away from the lights and cameras, the Patriots are still watching the media keep enough distance to allow them to assault the league like militia. That is good for them. But it is not distant enough for them to use it.

For the Patriots and Seahawks, it is about controlling the ability to have the respect they already earned. But that is not what week 1 is for them so much. It is more about the power of position. The winner gets to start ahead of their respective conferences. The other team has to fight the next few weeks from a position of  open vulnerability.