Super Bowl Sunday has arrived.

Sun greeted the Seahawks as they awoke Sunday morning at their hotel in San Jose, about nine miles from the Super Bowl 60 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. The game site 45 miles south of the league’s Super Bowl headquarters in downtown San Francisco.

The weather forecast for kickoff at 3:30 p.m. Sunday of the Seahawks versus the New England Patriots playing for the Vince Lombardi Trophy representing the NFL championship: Perfect. Sunny, 65 degrees, win a 9 mph with no chance of rain and temperatures going down to 57 degrees by game’s end.

The field already reputed to be the NFL’s best grass surface should be perfect, too.

Pro Bowl kick returner and wide receiver Rashid Shaheed on Saturday posted a photo of Seattle’s tour of the stadium the day before the game. It was of the rival Seahawks occupying the San Francisco 49ers’ home locker room at Levi’s Stadium, the place where Seattle won the NFC West championship and top conference playoff seed in week 18 of the regular season last month.

Rashid Shaheed posted the inside of the @Seahawks locker room that usually belongs to the 49ers pic.twitter.com/Rv92xZHWl4

— Alyssa Charlston-Smith (@Alyssacharlston) February 8, 2026

The News Tribune’s keys for the Seahawks’ quest to win the Super Bowl for the second time in the franchise’s 50-year history:

Sam Darnold staying the same

Sam Darnold made the Pro Bowl for his 4,000-yard passing season and being the league’s best deep-ball thrower this season.

He didn’t make the Pro Bowl for his league-leading 20 turnovers during the regular season.

Yet in the last four games, Darnold has as committed as many turnovers in an NFL game as you have. Zero in the team’s win for Seattle’s first division title since 2020. Zero in the divisional-playoff blowout of the 49ers. And zero in the win over the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC championship and place in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Between that and his injured left oblique healing to the point Thursday and Friday this past week were his first full-go practices since Jan. 15, Darnold is ultra comfortable entering the Super Bowl.

“The biggest thing for me as a quarterback is just understanding situations. The first- and second-down stuff, being able to understand, OK, why are we calling this play?” Darnold said. “Where my checkdowns are at. Is there a certain protection where they might eat up (pass rush into) a (running) back and the back might not be able to get out (in his pass pattern) and I’ve got to maybe throw it to a receiver or just throw it away over his head? Or, is the back going to able to get out, and I can look for him a little bit quicker on the checkdown.

“And then it comes to third down, being able to get through my progression, understand why we’re calling the play.”

Darnold said having the league’s top-ranked scoring defense allows him to settle for throwing the ball away, even on third down, rather than trying to force a play into tight pass coverage to put the ball at risk.

“That’s kind of the benefit of having a great defense,” Darnold said. “Especially the latter half of the season, I always felt like I never really had to force anything.”

The Seahawks enter this game believing the Patriots are not going to drive the length of the field multiple times for multiple touchdowns on that number-one defense. If Darnold doesn’t hand quarterback Drake Maye and New England the ball in short fields already in scoring positions, the Seahawks defense can win them this Super Bowl.

Kenneth Walker on 1st, 2nd downs

Kenneth Walker is playing the final game of his contract in this Super Bowl. Rarely has a lead back so integral in a title-game team’s offensive game plan been heading to employment after the game.

There won’t be a more personally motivated player on the field Sunday. The 25-year-old is playing for his career.

Have the Seahawks offered or even approached Walker about a new contract.

“Not that I know of,” Walker told the TNT this week in San Jose.

That’s the same thing he said last summer.

“I feel like we’ve been more focused on the season and winning the Super Bowl,” Walker said.

If the 1,000-yard back does what he’s been doing through the first two games of this preseason, chunk run plays on first and second down, offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak in his final Seahawks game can use the entire playbook. Third and short means Darnold at his best, on the move throwing with play-action passes containing the real threat to run, neutralizing a Patriots pass rush that has 12 sacks in three AFC playoff games.

Kubiak, who is expected to officially leave Seattle Monday to become the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, is going to feature Walker. A lot. So much, the running back without a job come Monday could, with a Seahawks win, become the Super Bowl MVP.

Defennding Drake Maye’s run

The Patriots quarterback is the most unique, difficult threat the Seahawks defense has faced this season.

“He is a running back who also throws,” Seattle general manager John Schneider said last week of the former University of North Carolina QB the Seahawks and every other NFL teams scouted deeply out of college a few years ago.

Unlike Baker Mayfield (whose Buccaneers scored 38 on Seattle in winning in October at Lumen Field, after a late turnover by Darnold handed Tampa Bay the winning field goal), Maye doesn’t run to extend plays to throw. He runs to tuck the ball under his arm and truck defenders. New England’s quarterback injured his throwing shoulder in the AFC title game two weeks ago stiff-arming a Denver Broncos defender on one of his power runs.

DeMarcus Lawrence, Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy, they have been fantastic this Seahawks season pressuring quarterbacks. The front four’s success has allowed coach Mike Macdonald to keep seven in pass coverage. Those numbers have been in Seattle’s favor all season.

But they have been susceptible to allowing QB’s to break containment on edges and extend plays. If that happens in the Super Bowl, Maye may be the game’s leading rusher. Maye has 61 scramble runs this season. Almost a third of those, 18, have gone for 10 or more yards.

Look for Macdonald to put do-it-all safety (now that he’s back healthy) Nick Emmanwori on Maye, perhaps as a second-level spy behind Seattle’s defensive line, to run up and use his sure tackling to keep Maye’s runs to 4 and 5 yards instead of 10 or more.

That could be the difference between Seattle forcing New England to punt and the Patriots getting first downs to scores.

And that would be the difference between the Seahawks having a parade through downtown Seattle and them losing the Super Bowl for the third time in four appearances all time.

The Super Bowl pick

A more comfortable Darnold does not turn the ball over, for the fifth consecutive game.

Walker romps like no pending free-agent back has romped before in a Super Bowl, a 100-yard game with touchdowns to become the game’s MVP.

Emmanwori shows the ankle he turned in practice Wednesday is fine, and corrals Maye in the game’s crucial matchup.

And Macdonald does it, wins the Super Bowl in the 38-year-old defensive wizard’s second season as a head coach, at any level.

And they do it decisively.

Seahawks 31, Patriots 10.