$.05 After The Super Bowl

[RealGM Articles]

We have a champion! Congrats to the Seattle Seahawks for capturing their second Super Bowl title by dominating the New England Patriots

$.01--The Game

Defense wins championships. It certainly did for the Seattle Seahawks, which unleashed a suffocating defensive effort in Santa Clara. 

Yes, there was some bad offense--from both teams. Specifically, bad offensive line play from the New England Patriots and some poor throws by Sam Darnold for Seattle. Darnold avoided making mistakes, while Drake Maye couldn’t match that behind a truly dreadful performance from the rookies on his offensive line. That’s the nutshell.

Seattle completely throttled New England’s offense all night. The Seahawks shut out the Patriots in the first half, allowing just 51 net yards and four first downs. The shutout extended through the third quarter. New England’s first nine drives, not counting a one-play kneeldown before halftime:

The Patriots defense valiantly tried to hold serve, but the Seahawks managed four Jason Myers field goals to accrue a 12-0 lead going into the final quarter. Kenneth Walker had run quite well for Seattle, but the offense kept stalling thanks to some Darnold misses and some well-heeled Patriots defensive plays as well. 

Darnold found an uncovered A.J. Barner shortly after that Patriots fumble, and that pushed the lead to 19-0, a completely insurmountable margin. New England finally found the end zone with two TDs in the fourth quarter, though the Seahawks added another Myers FG and a fumble return for a TD off a strip sack in between. The outcome was never really in doubt after the first couple of drives of the third quarter. Despite the anticlimactic game, it was still fun to watch the dominant defensive performance from Mike MacDonald’s “Dark Side”. 

Walker earned the MVP honor, finishing with 135 rushing yards on 27 carries. His patient, explosive style gave the Patriots linebackers fits, constantly exploiting their pursuit and waiting until he was deep in the hole before bouncing out for several big gains. The MVP was truly the Seahawks defense, all 11 of them, but that’s not how the NFL operates. Walker still deserved his honors for a very good game. 

$.02--The Halftime Show

Bad Bunny is not an artist I’m very familiar with. That has to be said out front. I’m a metal aficionado; the more musically complex, the better. That’s not Bad Bunny, not even close. 

I knew that going in. Still, I wanted to see why he’s the most-streamed artist and won the recent Grammy. I wanted to see what sort of production they could muster for an artist who doesn’t sing in English and isn’t well-known for a lot of demographics, including my own. 

The music was absolutely not for me. Just not something I would ever voluntarily listen to. And that’s okay. I’m never intentionally listening to Katy Perry or Rihanna either, but their halftime shows were well-produced and entertaining.

Bad Bunny’s set pulled that off, too. The slice of American life from Puerto Rican eyes was incredibly well done. The set flowed and facilitated the musical progression expertly. It was a good show, no doubt about it. I enjoyed it even with the music that doesn’t appeal to me at all. 

And that’s part of why I think the NFL is missing out on not having a rock act. The biggest band in the world remains Metallica, from the Bay Area. What an opportunity to give them a nod and have bassist Robert Trujillo, of Native American and Mexican descent, make even a token guest appearance to help reinforce the prevailing theme of unity and community. If 50-something metal heads can find some enjoyment in Bad Bunny or Kendrick Lamar a year ago, why can’t we try to have our culture showcased? It’s been 16 years since The Who’s regrettable halftime performance, the last real rock act (no, Coldplay doesn’t count). 

No, I didn’t think of checking out the alternate halftime that was indeed more of my musical persuasion. It felt like a shallow political statement instead of an actual musical show. Bad Bunny’s show smartly danced around that without ignoring it, rather than reveling in division. That’s the correct path. 

$.03--The Commercials

The Super Bowl is, well, the Super Bowl of television advertising. This year’s commercials leaned a little too heavily on AI for my personal taste, but there were definitely some strong advertising efforts in this one. 

One early winner: a spot for ClaudeAI featuring an in-ad fake advertisement for a “cougar”. Brilliantly done. 

Personal favorite: Redfin and Rocket showing the good in America with their heartfelt and earnest  “America Needs Neighbors”. A-freaking-men. 

Liquid IV co-opting Phil Collins into “take a look at your pee” was certainly unexpected. Wasn’t a hit for me, but everyone else I was watching with loved it. 

The Lays retirement spot, featuring an aged potato farmer and his daughter, yeah, that’s the good stuff. 

The Manscaped ad with forlorn shorn body hair hit home, as someone who has previously been sponsored by Manscaped on both the radio and podcast. 

Good Will Dunkin was a definite winner that we will certainly see way too much of in the coming days…

The Sabrina Carpenter spot for Pringles was a winner. 

I liked the tight ends spot for prostate cancer screening. Relaxitsabloodtest got a click from me, a man of a certain age. That’s the point, right?

But this was the overwhelming takeaway from the Super Bowl 60 ads:

With each and every ad for AI services, I realize I have very little interest in living in an AI-dominated world.

— Jeff Risdon (@jeffrizz.bsky.social) February 8, 2026 at 8:30 PM

$.04--The NFL Honors

One of the true highlights of Super Bowl week is the NFL Honors show, which has grown in extravagance and prestige of late. It’s now a primetime broadcast staple and gets treated like it’s as important as a game, thankfully overshadowing what’s become of the Pro Bowl.

There weren’t any huge surprises in the awards this year, though there were indeed some close battles. It started at the top with the NFL MVP, as voted by the AP. Rams QB Matthew Stafford edged out Patriots QB Drake Maye by the equivalent of one first-place vote. Both were quite deserving, and Stafford won in the end by having his best career season (statistically) at age 37: 4,707 yards, 46 TDs, 8 INTs. Stafford had two seasons in his Detroit era when he threw for more yards, but he needed over 125 fewer attempts to hit 4,700 in 2025 than he did to hit 5,000 in 2011. 

On the flip side, Myles Garrett captured the Defensive Player of the Year with a unanimous voting result. Breaking the NFL single-season sack record despite facing the third-fewest pass attempts in the league, a function of his Browns being behind for the eighth-most amount of time. 

The MVP has, unfortunately, devolved into an award exclusively for quarterbacks of playoff teams. On the surface, that makes perfect sense. Quarterback is the most important, most challenging position in professional sports, and winning teams deserve the honor. However, the last non-QB MVP was Adrian Peterson back in 2012. LaDanian Tomlinson in 2006, Shaun Alexander in 2005 and Marshall Faulk in 2000 are the only non-QBs to win the MVP in the 21st century. 

This year wasn’t going to be the year to snap the run of QBs, but I do want to note that the Seahawks wouldn’t have been in the Super Bowl without WR Jaxson Smith-Njigba’s phenomenal season. Smith-Njigba won the AP Offensive Player of the Year but wasn’t even in the top 6 in MVP voting. Nothing against Josh Allen, Trevor Lawrence or Justin Herbert, but Smith-Njigba absolutely deserved more MVP love than any of those QBs who finished in the top 6.

As a sign of good faith and disclosure, this is my PFWA ballot for the major awards:

Remember, the awards are for the regular season. Ballots were cast in between Week 18 and the days after Wild Card weekend. 

$.05: Sam Darnold’s NFL career has not exactly gone as planned. The No. 3 overall pick of the 2018 NFL Draft by the Jets, Darnold never lived up to the billing. Heck, his first NFL pass attempt resulted in a pick-6 by Lions safety Quandre Diggs. 

Darnold wasn’t right for New York. Or Carolina. Or Los Angeles. He finally showed real signs in 2024 in Minnesota, his fourth team in five seasons. Darnold guided a very good Vikings team to a 14-3 finish and a playoff berth, wisely leaning on a talented supporting cast, a good line, and a very strong defense. 

Yet Darnold’s final two games in Minnesota reminded everyone why he had become a journeyman. In a 2024 regular-season finale blowout loss to the Lions, a game that decided the No. 1 seed in the NFC, Darnold was 18-of-41 for 166 yards and missed several “open” throws. A week later, he was pummeled in a blowout loss to the Rams, sacked nine times and looking a lot like he did in New York; the moment was too big, too fast. 

So Minnesota did what other teams had done--justifiably. They gave up on Darnold. At the time, in the context of his two overmatched performances in must-win games, it was hard to fault the Vikings for wanting to stick to the plan of first-round pick J.J. McCarthy taking control of the team going forward. 

It would have been very easy for Darnold to fade away. That’s not what he did. Darnold bounced to Seattle, a team that gave up on a generally game but frustrating Geno Smith. The Seahawks were coming off 9-8 and 10-7 seasons that were good but not good enough. Smith felt more like a ceiling than a solution.

Seattle believed in Darnold. To his unending credit, Darnold did too. He proved GM John Schneider correct. Darnold might have offered a lower floor than Geno Smith, but Darnold at his best blew away the ceiling. That’s what Seattle got. Instead of regressing to the bad play that marked his 2024 season when the pressure got hot, Darnold learned from his mistakes and grew. He wasn’t perfect in Seattle’s playoff run, but he didn’t need to be. That was the entire point for Darnold: be good on this team and we don’t need you to be great. He couldn’t do that in Minnesota, but he did it for the Seahawks. 

It’s a fantastic redemption story. Perseverance, too. It’s a nice lesson for NFL teams to maybe give guys like Darnold, a talented but star-crossed young vet, another chance instead of risking everything on an overhyped, overdrafted rookie. It’s a slap in the face for all the critics who love to throw the “you can’t win a Super Bowl with X at QB”. Darnold is living proof that it isn’t a QB who wins the Super Bowl these days. It’s a team led by a good quarterback, just like Jalen Hurts and the Eagles a year ago. 

We’ll see how that new model persists, but it’s eminently more tenable than hitting on a lottery ticket in Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady. Oh by the way, Mahomes didn’t win the Super Bowl until the Chiefs\\\' defense went from bottom 10 to top 10, either. Here’s to the new wave of teams, and to Sam Darnold.