SAN FRANCISCO — There’s been a bit an element of understandable apathy surrounding Super Bowl LX this weekend. Anyone who has been paying attention to the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks this postseason has seen the obvious: These teams are largely playing on two completely different planes of existence.
The Seahawks pulled the 49ers’ pants over their heads in a dominating victory that felt like it was over from the first drive, then had a real heavyweight duel with the Rams in the NFC title game. On the other hand, the Patriots have fought through some grueling battles without the high-end flashes that the Seahawks have shown.
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And the Patriots have a key weakness in this game, same as it’s been all their other games: the offensive line.
This isn’t to say that the Patriots have the worst offensive line in the league, because they certainly don’t. However, in a more amped setting like the playoffs where the best teams are the only teams populating the schedule, New England’s line has been forced to play some of the best defenses in the league and largely has not fared well. Throughout their three playoff games up to this point, the Patriots have only had a 33% success rate on offense and Drake Maye has been sacked on a rate of 16.3% of his dropbacks. The flip side is that the defense has also taken advantage of the poor weather conditions that they’ve played in, but that likely won’t be the same environment on Sunday.
Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel noted Thursday that containing the Seahawks’ defensive line games (like stunts and twists) will be crucial in the Super Bowl.
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“That will be a huge factor in the game,” he said.
Vrabel also praised the development of rookies Will Campbell and Jared Wilson, who make up the left side of the Patriots’ line.
“We never really looked at it as rookie players on the left side,” Vrabel said. “We talk about maturity.”
New England has a chance here in this game if Campbell, Wilson and the offensive line can play beyond its years and better than what it’s shown in the playoffs. The Patriots certainly don’t have the same level of talent up front as a team that’s usually in this circumstance — hell, even the Seahawks’ offensive line, which isn’t an elite unit, has at least three plus starters on it in Charles Cross, Grey Zabel and Abe Lucas. Up to this point, over 42% of the Patriots’ offensive plays have gone for negative yardage, and they have the worst mark for first downs per drive (1.14) among any team to play in the playoffs this year. The offensive line has been battered against some of the best defensive lines that the league has to offer, and it’s hard to see how that changes this week against the vaunted Seahawks front.
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The one thing that this offensive line has going for it is that Maye is one of the best athletes at quarterback in the league and has already shown that his athletic prowess can be the big difference for the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
Maye has his O-line’s back too, especially Campbell, who he’s become close friends with this season.
“He doesn’t take any crap, on or off the field,” Maye said.
However, Campbell and the line still needs to give Maye (and the running backs behind them) a chance to win this game. It really will come down to the Patriots’ ability up front to hold arguably the most cohesive front seven in the NFL at bay.
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Hopefully they do, because it’s best if this Super Bowl doesn’t feed into the anti-hype that’s led the discourse for the game up to this point. New England’s front five needs to play uncharacteristically well against yet another defensive line that has far more talent than it does.
If they can pull that off, this Patriots team can be one of the more unlikely Super Bowl winners of this era.
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