Uncover the Surprising Stats Behind the Seahawks’ Unforgettable Super Bowl Triumph Over the Patriots

We’ve got some of the key stats, facts and data points that tell the story of a one-sided Super Bowl 60 in which the Seahawks cruised to a win over the Patriots in Santa Clara.

The Seattle Seahawks had the NFL’s best defense this season.

On Sunday night, they ensured that defense would go down as one of the best in league history.

A New England Patriots touchdown in garbage time won’t obscure that fact to anyone who watched Seattle’s dominant 29-13 win in Super Bowl 60 at Santa Clara, California.

A Seahawks team that allowed a league-low 292 points in the regular season and comfortably led the NFL in defensive expected points added already rated comparably to the 2013 “Legion of Boom” defense heading into Super Sunday.

The 2013 unit ranks fourth with a minus-7.96 defensive TRACR among all teams dating back to 1991, while this year’s “Dark Side” defense sat seventh at -7.67. And then the Seahawks finished the season with an exclamation point.

In the process, they delivered a Super Bowl to Sam Darnold, who didn’t make any crippling errors and now joins Trent Dilfer in the “whoa, that QB won a Super Bowl?” pantheon. 

Here are 12 numbers that tell the story of Super Bowl 60, in case “29-13” doesn’t do it on its own. (It doesn’t.)

6

Sacks by the Seahawks, one off the Super Bowl record. We’ll eventually see where their pressure rate checks in, but I’ll guess it was at least 50% – an astonishing number in an NFL game.

The Seahawks got sacks with a four-man rush. They got sacks on blitzes, most notably the nickel blitz by Devon Witherspoon that led to the game’s most memorable play (which was changed from a sack and fumble to an interception shortly after the game):