A few weeks ago, right as the Seahawks were beginning their playoff run to the Super Bowl, coach Mike Macdonald noted that one way he eases anxiety is to remember all that he has to be grateful.

“Just count your blessings, he said.

Applied to football, Macdonald said when he’s worried about how the Seahawks might defend an opposing offense: “You walk in the locker room and you’re like, ‘We’ve got some great players and they’re ready to go.’ It’s like ‘OK, I feel a little bit better now.’ "

That might be good advice to heed if you’re anxious about the Seahawks as they prepare to play the New England Patriots on Sunday in Super Bowl LX.

The Seahawks didn’t get here by accident.

They allowed the fewest points in the NFL this season while scoring the third-most, setting a team record for points scored with 483, while leading the NFL with a plus-191 point differential, also a franchise record.

They averaged 5.9 yards per play while allowing 4.6, a differential of 1.3 per play that was better than the 2013 Seahawks, the franchise’s only previous Super Bowl winner.

They had maybe the best special teams in the NFL, with that unit scoring five touchdowns and indirectly contributing to a few more.

Yes, anything can happen.

The New England Patriots are here for a reason, too.

But the closer you look at the matchup — or in Macdonald’s case, peek into the locker room — there’s reasons to feel good about the Seahawks on Sunday.

For one last time this season, let’s take a closer look at the matchup:

Seattle Seahawks vs. New England Patriots

— When, where: 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif.

— TV: NBC. Mike Tirico (play-by-play), Cris Collinsworth (analyst), Kaylee Hartung, Melissa Stark (sidelines).

— Most recent game in series: The two teams last played in the second game of the 2024 season, a 23-20 Seahawks win in overtime in Foxborough. The quarterbacks that day were Geno Smith for Seattle and Jacoby Brissett for New England. The two met most recently in the playoffs in 2015 Super Bowl, a 28-24 New England win, the ending of which Seahawks fans remember all too well. Seattle leads the regular-season series 11-8.

— Point spread: Seahawks favored by 4.5.

— Key injuries: The Seahawks finished the week with just one player on the injury report — rookie fullback Robbie Ouzts, listed as questionable with a neck injury. Safety Nick Emmanwori, who suffered a low ankle sprain in practice on Wednesday, is considered good to go. The Patriots listed two key players as questionable — starting inside linebacker Robert Spillane (ankle) and outside linebacker Harold Landry (knee).

The big story

— Can the Seahawks keep doing it their way all the way to a Super Bowl title?

Macdonald and players vowed the last two weeks that nothing would change in the run-up to the Super Bowl. They would continue to preach process over results and every other stratagem that got them to their sport’s biggest stage.

Can they ride that to a Super Bowl title?

Receiver Cooper Kupp, who won a Super Bowl MVP in 2022, sounded confident this week.

“You play loose and focused, you understand you’ve done all the work," he said. “And when the game starts you have butterflies all the way up to it, but when the game starts you let it rip."

Key matchup

— Seahawks interior offensive line against Patriots defensive lineman Milton Williams and Christian Barmore.

Williams is officially listed as an end on New England’s 3-4 front and Barmore a tackle.

They are considered two of the better pass-rushing interior linemen in the NFL and will match up consistently against the Seahawks' interior O-line trio of center Jalen Sundell, right guard Anthony Bradford and left guard Grey Zabel.

The addition of Zabel helped solidify the offensive line, and as the results show, in general it got the job done. Expect New England coach Mike Vrabel to have devised some stunts and different looks up front to try to create some free lanes to pressure quarterback Sam Darnold and force him into mistakes.

Key player

— Quarterback Sam Darnold.

Expect at least a few mentions of Darnold’s infamous “seeing ghosts" game against these same Patriots when he was with the Jets in 2019. The Jets lost 33-0 as Darnold had a 3.6 passer rating, during which he was caught on a mic saying he was “seeing ghosts as he was trying to decipher New England’s pressure.

Darnold’s success this year has mostly put his old demons to rest, and a win in a Super Bowl would kill them for good.

Darnold hasn’t had a turnover in three consecutive games — each becoming the biggest he has played as a Seahawk — while completing 57 of 79 passes for 668 yards and four TDs in consecutive wins over the 49ers and the Rams.

The Seahawks need more of the same Sunday.

Key stat

— Patriots’ rushing yards

The Patriots were one of the more committed running teams in the NFL this season, ranking sixth in attempts (29) and yards per game (128.9). That effort was led by rookie running back TreVeyon Henderson (180 carries for 911 yards, 5.1 per carry).

The Seahawks allowed 129 or more yards only twice all year, each in blowout wins in which the opponent piled up a lot of yards in late garbage time (157 in a 38-14 win at Washington and 129 in a 44-22 win over Arizona). The Seahawks have gone 28 consecutive games without allowing a 100-yard individual rusher.

The Seahawks allowed just 3.7 yards per attempt, fewest in the NFL, while the Pats gained 4.4, 14th in the NFL.

The winner Sunday may be whichever team stays closest to their trends.

Three other key questions

— Can the Seahawks' special teams make another game-turning play?

The Seahawks' special teams have not only been consistently good but often come up big when it was needed most: Rashid Shaheed’s punt return TD that sparked the comeback against the Rams in December, Shaheed’s game-opening kickoff return in the playoffs against the 49ers and Dareke Young’s fumble recovery on a punt return that led to a TD in the NFC title game. Can they do it again?

— How will Nick Emmanwori hold up?

The one big piece of news this week was Emmanwori’s ankle sprain Wednesday. He downplayed it the next day, and he’s expected to play. It will be worth watching early to see if he’s his usual dynamic self. Macdonald has had to reconfigure things in the secondary because of his injury on the fly a lot this season, so there are some well-tested alternatives if Emmanwori isn’t 100% or suffers a re-injury. That means using Ty Okada.

— Will Jaxon Smith-Njigba again shine on the biggest of stages?

Smith-Njigba thrived in the brightest of spotlights his entire career, notably setting a Rose Bowl record with 347 receiving yards in 2022 while at Ohio State and turning in 153 receiving yards in the NFC title game against the Rams, second-most in a postseason game for a Seahawk. He’ll likely line up often against Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez, a 6-foot-1, 205-pounder generally regarded as one of the better cover corners in the league in what may be the best individual matchup in the game.

Prediction

— Seahawks 26, Patriots 13

The Patriots have had a dream season of their own to get this far. But the Seahawks simply seem like the better and more well-rounded team from top to bottom and barring a slew of mistakes, should claim the second Super Bowl title in team history Sunday.

© 2026 The Seattle Times. Visit www.seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.