The Seattle Seahawks play in their fourth Super Bowl on Sunday against the New England Patriots. The Seahawks made it to the championship game by beating their NFC West division rivals, the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams, in the playoffs.
KNKX Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick caught up with Steve Raible, the longtime play-by-play broadcaster on the Seahawks Radio Network and former Seahawks wide receiver, to talk about the team's record-breaking season and their chances in the Super Bowl.
Interview Highlights
The Seahawks' progression this season
If you go back to what they did last year with a first-year head coach in Mike Macdonald, they won 10 games. And then they kind of retooled in the offseason — brought in a new quarterback, brought in a new offensive coordinator, a new offensive line coach, several new coaches on offense — to help put it all together. The defense was pretty solid. They needed a couple of new pieces, and they got them.
But I don't know that anybody could have looked at, when the preseason started this year, looked at this team and said, "You know what, this is going to be a group. I think that's going to win 14 games total. They're going to win more games on the road than they've ever won in the history of the franchise, and, oh, by the way, they're going to win two playoff games and go to the Super Bowl." I don't know that anybody really thought that, or would have said it out loud. But as the season went on, you started to see that in this football team.
The Seahawks' biggest weapons
To win in the National Football League at any level, you have to have a quarterback. And they found their guy in Sam Darnold. He has been remarkable. He's been consistent. He has thrown the ball well. Yes, he has turned the ball over some, and he's the first one to admit that. But he also has won football games for this team with that arm. That performance in the championship game against the Rams a couple of weeks ago was as good as there has been in this franchise's history.
You got some stars on offense, led by JSN [Jaxon Smith-Njigba]. You've got some big, big players on defense, starting with the guys up front. Everything starts in the trenches — offensive line, defensive line — and that defensive front really runs that show.
And finally, you mentioned well-balanced. I think they have the best special teams in all of professional football. And all you have to do is look at the results: kickoff returns for touchdowns, punt returns for touchdowns. Their kickoff coverage team.
They are the best team in the National Football League when it comes to coverage on kickoffs. So when you force a team to have to go the long field, chances are you're going to make a play on defense, you're going to stop them at some point. So all in all, just the most well-balanced team that I think the Seahawks have had in a generation.
The Super Bowl game
I think it often comes down to: Can you run the football? Can you keep the other team honest by keeping the ball on the ground, keeping their offense on the sidelines, control the time of possession? And then when your defense is on the field, just make life miserable for [Patriots quarterback] Drake Maye. And I think we can do both those things.
