RJ Hamster
SI MMQB: Seattle Celebrates 🏆
Welcome back to The MMQB newsletter.
The Seahawks’ celebrations continue, with Seattle taking to the streets on Wednesday to celebrate their team’s Super Bowl LX victory. Greg Bishop took readers inside the parade, describing the scenes as uniquely Seattle.
With the dust settled on the 2025 NFL season, The MMQB has been reflecting on the campaign that was. Gilberto Manzano listed his winners and losers and lessons learnedfrom the past season, while Albert Breer chronicled how Sam Darnold built an unwavering winning identity in Seattle.
We’ve also started to look ahead to the offseason. Breer broke down how teams could approach free agency and much more in this week’s mailbag. And Matt Verderame peered even further in the future, naming the Super Bowl LXI matchup he’d most like to see and giving each team a reason to hope and mopein the year ahead.
We’ll start, though, with our feet firmly planted in the present, with Bishop from the Seahawks’ Super Bowl parade.
Super Bowl LX Champions
Kevin Ng-Imagn Images
What a Super Bowl Title Means to Seattle—and Why the Seahawks Are Primed for More
By Greg Bishop
On Wednesday morning, frigid temperatures gave way to tolerable cold and crowds on top of crowds on top of crowds. The local sports fan base descended anyway, despite dizzying logistical hurdles and ever-more density, in human form, waving away responsibilities like work and school in order to congregate in the rarest possible way. These fans, proud and sensitive, had a major championship to celebrate.
My, oh, my.
We haven’t had a lot of those around here, where it’s beautiful and rainy and close to nature, where you can soak in pretty much anything—except for these exact parades. The first moved through downtown in 1979, after the SuperSonics gave Seattle its first major sports championship. The next, best I can tell, didn’t wind through these streets for 35 years. Not until the Seahawks won their first Super Bowl after the 2013 season. Because we are Seattleites, and we understand that weather cannot scuttle plans, more than 700,000 showed up in sub-freezing temps for that one. Two smaller parades—for two WNBA titles won by the Storm, in ’18 and in ’20—followed.
Followed by, well, this.
Simon Bruty/Sports Illustrated
How Sam Darnold Built an Unwavering Team Identity in Seattle
By Albert Breer
One of the things I included in my postgame column that merits a little more fleshing out is this comment from Seattle coach Mike Macdonald on his quarterback Sam Darnold winning it all: “It’s probably the happiest I’ve ever been for somebody.”
Macdonald’s reasoning for feeling this way is perhaps unsurprising. For the amount of scrutiny and criticism Darnold received, he’s remained the same guy throughout.
Under fire all year, and endlessly ridden for the “seeing ghosts” comment he made six years ago, and the Minnesota meltdown at the end of 2024, Darnold has maintained the kind of square jaw that would make his Marlboro Man grandfather proud. You’d have to do a lot more than call him a sidecar to the Seahawks’ success, or a beneficiary of a great team, to shake him.
He knows what he is.
His teammates know too, which is why they love him, and have his back relentlessly.
Winners and Losers From the 2025 NFL Season: Second-Chance Quarterbacks Triumphed
By Gilberto Manzano
Winners: Seahawks GM John Schneider and head coach Mike Macdonald
Schneider noticed his team was being left behind by the Rams and 49ers in the NFC West and made the necessary moves to escape the mediocre cycle—a purgatory that has vexed many teams.
The Steelers, Cowboys, Bengals and many other teams are currently trapped in this cycle, which doesn’t allow for true Super Bowl contention. But Schneider noticed how stagnant the Seahawks had become under coach Pete Carroll and made the difficult decision to fire one of the most successful coaches in franchise history.
At the time, it didn’t seem right that Schneider got a pass and Carroll didn’t, when the team was struggling to hit on draft picks. But Schneider made the most of the extra opportunity and was wise to think outside the box with the hire of a defensive-minded coach, Macdonald, whose fresh ideas and outlook have aided Schneider’s personnel decisions over the past two seasons.
This new partnership hasn’t gotten much wrong and has been quick to react whenever results haven’t been up to par. It’s been the opposite of those final years with Carroll.
Complacency can be a scary place, and the Seahawks don’t appear to have plans of going back any time soon.
Simon Bruty/Sports Illustrated
A Reason to Hope and Mope for All 32 NFL Teams
By Matt Verderame
The NFL is the only major North American sport where a team can legitimately hope to go from being one of the league’s worst to one of its best in a year.
Just ask the Patriots, who went from a four-win team to the Super Bowl in the span of 12 months. The Seahawks also had a wild ride to Santa Clara, Calif., spending last offseason trading away their starting quarterback and star receiver, only to then win 14 games and romp to the sport’s ultimate prize.
Looking ahead to the upcoming offseason and subsequent season, some franchises are obviously positioned better than others. Teams like the Rams and Bills may only be a move or two away from hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, while others, such as the Jets and Raiders, need to make significant strides to challenge for a playoff spot and beyond.
Below, we look at all 32 teams and give one reason to believe 2026 could be special, and another for why things could go south.
Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat and Chronicle/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Albert Breer’s Mailbag: How the Bills Can Help Josh Allen in Free Agency
By Albert Breer
From Ryan (@RJNYY0): What do the Bills do to address the WR room? Could a draft trade up be in the cards?
Ryan, at this point, I presume the Cowboys will tag George Pickens. That leaves two players who would top my list, if I were a contending team like the Bills looking for receiver help in free agency.
One would be 27-year-old Seahawks receiver Rashid Shaheed, who may be a match made in heaven for Josh Allen—a deep threat who could weaponize Allen’s ability to push the ball downfield. Shaheed’s never had a season with 60 catches or 750 yards, but the potential tied to his game-breaking ability is tantalizing. And until he joined the Seahawks midseason this year, he never had much stability at quarterback.
The other would be 25-year-old Colts receiver Alec Pierce, who had 47 catches, 1,003 yards (that’s a 21.3-yard average) and six touchdowns this year in 15 games. That was after a 37-catch, 824-yard (22.3-yard average), seven-touchdown season in 2025, with a really challenging quarterback situation. Add Pierce’s 6’3″, 211-pound frame to the equation, and how he would fit alongside Khalil Shakir and Dalton Kincaid, and he’d be the one for me.
We’ll see what happens, but add Pierce to Shakir, Kincaid, Keon Coleman, Dawson Knox and James Cook, and I think Allen would be positioned for a real run.
Jamie Schwaberow/Sports Illustrated
Eight Lessons We Learned During the 2025 NFL Season: Defense Reigns Supreme
By Gilberto Manzano
The teams that invested in defense over the past few years saw plenty of return this season.
In 2023, the Seahawks used a top-five pick on All-Pro cornerback Devon Witherspoon, who recorded a sack and forced Drake Maye into a pick-six in Super Bowl LX. In that same draft, the Texans relinquished a future first-round pick to the Cardinals to select star edge rusher Will Anderson Jr. with the No. 3 pick.
Those are just two of many examples of defensive moves paying off in 2025, but defensive free-agent signings also have worked out. For example, the Broncos added defensive tackle Zach Allen in ’23 and safety Talanoa Hufanga last offseason and both made All-Pro teams in ’25 for Denver’s stacked defense.
As for more evidence as to why it’s wise to invest on the defensive side, the Seahawks, Texans, Broncos and Patriots were the top four teams in scoring defense, and all four advanced to the divisional round. Three of those teams made it to championship Sunday. And, of course, the Seahawks won Super Bowl LX behind a dominant defensive performance.
Defenses have now regained the advantage over offenses after the rules were tweaked to benefit quarterbacks and encourage more points. Don’t be surprised if more teams begin to prioritize the defensive side this offseason.
Around the league
• Matt Verderame: The Best Super Bowl LXI Matchup We’d Like to See
• Gilberto Manzano: Final Grades for Every NFC Team for the 2025 Season
• Verderame: Final Grades for Every AFC Team for the 2025 Season
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