On Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl LX. With the win, Seattle claimed its second title in franchise history.
Following the game, Trojans Wire’s Matt Zemek wrote that the result avenged Pete Carroll’s Super Bowl loss to the Patriots as Seattle’s head coach 11 years ago. Respectfully, I disagree with this notion. Here is why:
Completely different casts
For one, the faces were totally changed from the prior Super Bowl matchup between the two teams more than a decade prior. Seattle’s longest-tenured player is their punter, who joined the team in 2018. New England, meanwhile, does not even have any guys left who played with the great Tom Brady, with their two longest-tenured players being draft picks from the class of 2020. Both coaching staffs are also different, with legends Carroll and Bill Belichick having been replaced by Mike Macdonald and Mike Vrabel.
Super Bowl XLIX was an instant classic game
The first meeting between the two teams—featuring Malcolm Butler’s legendary interception at the goal line in the final minute—is widely considered to be one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time. Regardless of what happened in this year’s matchup between the two franchise’s, no one was going to forget that game for a long time.
Super Bowl LX was . . . not
By contrast, this year’s Super Bowl was extremely boring. The Seahawks deserve all of the credit in the world for their dominant defensive performance. But 20 years from now, how many people outside of Seattle are going to remember this game? They sure as heck will remember Malcolm Butler, though.
The teams were not as good
A huge part of what made the first Super Bowl matchup between the teams so iconic was the level of talent on the field. On one side, you had the Legion of Boom at its height, along with offensive stars Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch. On the other, you had perhaps the most talented team of the greatest dynasty in NFL history. The 2014 Patriots had the greatest quarterback and coach in NFL history, along with numerous other stars such as Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, and Darrelle Revis—all in their respective primes.
By contrast, this year’s Seahawks and Patriots teams were simply not on that level. Seattle was very much a worthy champion, and had an exceptional defense. However, they were not on the same level of Carroll’s 2013 and 2014 Seahawks teams. New England, meanwhile, had one of the luckiest runs to the Super Bowl in recent memory, taking advantage of an exceptionally weak schedule and opponent injury luck to make it back to the NFL’s biggest stage a year after winning just four games.
It is not crazy to suggest that the 2014 versions of the Seahawks and Patriots would both beat the 2025 versions of those teams by three touchdowns.
This was the JV Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl
If a high school’s varsity football teams loses a huge game, but the JV team beats that same opponent’s JV squad, is it really revenge? Of course not.
That is essentially the dynamic here. New England won the varsity Seahawks-Patriots game 11 years ago, and Seattle took the JV matchup this year.
A USC analogy
The first Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl was effectively the NFL equivalent of the 2006 USC-Texas Rose Bowl (which ironically, Carroll also lost in heartbreaking fashion). Not only were both matchups legendary games, but both featured two historically good teams with several all-time great players that would have cruised to a championship in nearly any other season.
If someday down the line, a two-loss USC team beats a two-loss Texas team in the championship of the expanded playoff, will it be sweet? Absolutely. Will it make up for that gut-wrenching loss 20 years ago? Absolutely not.
No one in Seattle should care
Ultimately, no one in Seattle should particularly care. The Seahawks just won the Super Bowl, after all. Nothing else should matter to them.
But as for Carroll? Sorry, but no, the worst loss of his NFL career was not avenged.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Seahawks won, but did not avenge Pete Carroll’s Super Bowl loss