Eleven years is a long time to wait for revenge. Long enough for careers to end, rosters to turn over completely, and coaching staffs to rebuild from scratch. Long enough that only the memory remains.
For Seattle, that memory is Malcolm Butler’s right hand.
The Seahawks and Patriots meet Sunday at Levi’s Stadium in Super Bowl 60, a rematch of the 2015 game that gave New England its fourth championship and left Seattle asking the question that never quite goes away: Why didn’t they just hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch?
Both teams enter 14-3, tied for the NFL’s best record. Both rank top-four in scoring offense and scoring defense. The matchup is balanced in ways Super Bowls rarely are. Seattle opened as 4.5-point favorites, the first time New England has been an underdog in the big game since Tom Brady’s first championship in 2002.
But numbers can’t capture what this game means. Not when the ghosts of 2015 still linger over every conversation about both franchises.
The Play That Changed Everything
February 1, 2015. University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. 26 seconds remaining.
Seattle had the ball at New England’s 1-yard line, trailing 28-24. One yard from back-to-back championships. One yard from dynasty.
Marshawn Lynch, the bruising running back nicknamed “Beast Mode,” had carried Seattle’s offense all season. He’d just gained four yards to set up second-and-goal from the 1. The Patriots didn’t call timeout. The clock ticked down to 26 seconds.
What happened next has been dissected, analyzed, and second-guessed more than perhaps any play call in Super Bowl history.
Instead of handing to Lynch, coach Pete Carroll called for a quick slant pass. Russell Wilson took the snap, looked right, and threw to receiver Ricardo Lockette cutting toward the goal line.
Malcolm Butler, an undrafted rookie cornerback who’d been working at Popeyes two years earlier, jumped the route. He intercepted the pass at the goal line with 20 seconds left. Patriots 28, Seahawks 24. Final.
“I ain’t never seen a group of grown men cry like that after I caught that ball,” Butler said last week.
The decision haunted Seattle immediately. Retired running back Emmitt Smith called it “the worst play call in the history of football.” Fans in the Pacific Northwest woke up in cold sweats for years. Richard Sherman’s face on the sideline, morphing from disbelief to anguish, became the image that defined heartbreak.
But the play was more complex than it appeared. Seattle had only one timeout remaining. They likely needed to throw at some point. The Patriots had goal-line personnel in, stacking the box against Lynch. Carroll was thinking outside the box.
So was Butler.
“I knew that the wide receiver can’t run too far because we were close to the goal line, so his route’s gonna be quick,” Butler explained. “It was man-to-man. I ain’t had no business looking at the run anyway.”
Bill Belichick had prepared Butler for exactly that formation in practice. When Butler tried to undercut the slant during the week and got beaten for a touchdown, Belichick gave him a short talk that planted the seed: If you see that formation, you have to just jump it.
Butler jumped it. New England won its fourth championship. The Patriots’ dynasty continued for another four years. Seattle has spent 11 years wondering what might have been.
Two Franchises, Two Different Journeys
The Patriots who arrive Sunday bear little resemblance to the team that won in 2015. Brady retired in 2022 after seven championships. Belichick was fired after last season’s 4-13 disaster, his first losing record in 21 years with New England.
Mike Vrabel, who won three Super Bowls as a Patriots linebacker, returned as head coach. He rebuilt the roster around second-year quarterback Drake Maye, the third overall pick in 2024. The 23-year-old grew up in North Carolina and attended the previous Super Bowl held at Levi’s Stadium in 2016, watching as a 13-year-old fan.
Now Maye is an MVP candidate who led New England to a 10-win improvement from last season. That turnaround ties the NFL record, and the Patriots are the first team to reach the Super Bowl after such a dramatic swing.
“We went 10 years without winning the Super Bowl before that,” Butler said of the 2015 victory. “It changed the franchise back to their winning ways.”
Vrabel can become the first man to win a Super Bowl as both a player and head coach with the same franchise. His defense held Denver to seven points in the AFC Championship Game despite brutal second-half conditions. His offense, led by Maye’s 258.5 passing yards per game during the regular season, ranked second in scoring at 28.8 points.
Seattle’s journey back took a different shape. The Seahawks made consecutive Super Bowls in 2014 and 2015, winning the first over Denver and losing the second to New England. They reached the playoffs seven times in the next nine seasons but never returned to the championship game.
Pete Carroll was fired after the 2023 season. Enter Mike Macdonald, who brought defensive coordinator Aden Durde with him. Durde, a British coach who played linebacker at Texas Tech, helped create a modern version of Seattle’s legendary “Legion of Boom” defense.
They call it “the Dark Side” now. It allowed the fewest points in the NFL at 17.2 per game. Third-best against the run at 91.9 yards allowed. Top-three in third-down defense, yards per rush, and yards per pass attempt.
Quarterback Sam Darnold, the third overall pick in 2018 who struggled with the Jets and Carolina, found redemption in Seattle. After backing up in San Francisco in 2023 and starting for Minnesota last season, Darnold joined the Seahawks and became just the second quarterback after Brady to post back-to-back 14-win seasons. He’s the first to do it with different teams.
His connection with receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who led the league in receiving yards, gives Seattle an offensive weapon to complement its suffocating defense. The Seahawks ranked third in scoring at 28.4 points per game, seventh in total offense at 351.4 yards.
This is the first Super Bowl where both teams rank top-four in scoring offense and scoring defense. Balance rarely comes this pure.
The Tactical Chessboard
Vrabel and Macdonald both built their reputations on defense. Vrabel as a player who understood offensive tendencies from the inside. Macdonald as a coordinator who rebuilt Baltimore’s defense before taking the Seattle job.
The matchup starts with Seattle’s defensive front against Maye’s quick processing. The Seahawks generate pressure without blitzing, using Durde’s exotic looks to confuse protection schemes. They’ve held opponents to 16 or fewer points in six of their last eight games.
Maye counters with mobility that Brady never had. The second-year quarterback extends plays with his legs, buying time for receivers to uncover. New England’s offense thrives on rhythm passing, using quick releases to negate pass rush.
On the other side, Darnold faces a Patriots defense that has quietly become elite. New England ranked fourth in points allowed during the regular season, holding opponents under 20 points in 11 games. They’re disciplined in coverage, rarely giving up explosive plays.
The key battle might be Seattle’s receiving corps against New England’s secondary. Smith-Njigba runs precise routes that exploit zone coverage. Cooper Kupp, who joined Seattle this season, provides veteran savvy in crucial moments. Can the Patriots’ young corners match their speed?
Special teams could decide a game this tight. Seattle kicker Jason Myers made 28 of 31 field goals during the regular season. New England’s Stephen Gostkowski, in his second stint with the team, provides championship experience.
Weather shouldn’t be a factor in Santa Clara’s controlled environment, unlike the snow that defined New England’s AFC Championship win in Denver. This game will be decided by execution, not elements.
What History Says
No team has dominated the Super Bowl like the Patriots. This is their 12th appearance, extending their own record. They’re 6-5 in those games, tied with Pittsburgh for most championships at six.
A win Sunday would give New England the all-time lead. It would also make Maye the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl since Dan Marino started at 23 in 1985. He’d be just the second second-year quarterback to win it all since Russell Wilson in 2014.
Wilson, of course, was the quarterback who threw the interception in 2015. The symmetry is almost too perfect.
Seattle’s Super Bowl history is shorter but intense. They won in 2014, crushing Denver 43-8 behind the Legion of Boom. They lost in 2015 on Butler’s interception. They lost in 2006 to Pittsburgh in a game Seattle fans still believe was stolen by officiating.
This is their fourth appearance. A win would give them two championships and some measure of closure after 2015.
Underdogs have covered five straight Super Bowls and won three straight outright. The betting public backs Seattle at 4.5-point favorites, with 69 percent of spread bets and 74 percent of money on the Seahawks.
But the Patriots have made a habit of defying expectations. They were 120-1 to win the Super Bowl after Week 3. They were underdogs in 2002 when Brady won his first championship. They covered that spread and kept covering for two decades.
The Weight of Memory
Butler won’t be on the field Sunday. He retired in 2024 after seven NFL seasons, two championships, and one interception that defined his career. He now coaches high school football in Houston, watching from a distance as his former team returns to face his nightmare.
“I’ve never been to Seattle,” Butler said this week. He knows there’s no love lost for him in the Pacific Northwest.
The players who were there in 2015 are mostly gone. Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman for New England. Lynch, Sherman, Carroll for Seattle. The rosters have turned over. The rivalry exists now in memory, not personnel.
But memory matters in football. It shapes how teams prepare, how they respond to pressure, how they handle the moment when everything compresses into a single play.
Seattle remembers standing one yard from back-to-back championships. They remember Wilson’s pass floating toward Lockette. They remember Butler’s hands.
New England remembers the dynasty that moment preserved. They remember Belichick’s decision not to call timeout. They remember Butler, the undrafted rookie who saved their season.
Sunday, 11 years later, both teams get another chance. Same opponent. Different rosters. Same stakes.
One yard decided everything in 2015. This time, it might come down to inches.
The game kicks off at 6:30 p.m. ET at Levi’s Stadium, where a 13-year-old Drake Maye once sat in the stands dreaming of this moment. Where Malcolm Butler became a legend. Where Seattle’s heartbreak was frozen in time.
Eleven years is a long time to wait. Long enough to rebuild. Long enough to forget most of the details.
But not long enough to forget that interception.
Never long enough for that.
