Patriots coordinator Josh McDaniels faces Seahawks again in his 10th Super Bowl

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Name the person who might have the most experience taking part in a championship game of anyone that will be on the field for Super Bowl LX on Sunday. 

Any guesses? It’s not a player. It’s certainly not either of the head coaches who are both coaching in their first Super Bowl. 

One could argue Patriots owner Robert Kraft is the correct answer, and while that might be technically true, he is unlikely to have direct involvement in the final outcome.

The answer is Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. He’s been here nine times before, all of them with the Patriots. All of them with Tom Brady as the quarterback. He was the offensive coordinator 11 years ago when these teams met for the championship and he’s again the offensive coordinator trying to break down an elite Seahawks defense. 

Except this time, McDaniels and the Patriots are back here with a totally different type of quarterback under his tutelage, helping mold Drake Maye into an MVP-caliber QB in just his second season in the league. 

While the quarterbacks he’s taken to the Super Bowl are strikingly different in some of the things they can do — Maye’s mobility is something Brady lacked — the way the Patriots function offensively is rooted in many of the same principles that transcend the time of the two QBs. 

At least, that’s the way it appears to Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald. 

“It’s rooted in their system. Without having been there the whole time, but having gone against the Patriots for a number of years, the core principles seem like they’re there,” Macdonald said. “And then, look, you’ve got to give them a lot of credit. It’s an incredibly efficient offense. They’ve been explosive. There’s definitely some things that they’re probably doing that’s exclusive to Drake, as they should. But that’s what you’d expect from a great offense is to have a great foundation and be able to build around your players.”

Whether either offense is going to be able to accomplish much in this Super Bowl is one of the big unknowns going into Sunday’s game. What the Seahawks defense has accomplished this season is highly regarded and well known across the football spectrum after leading the league in scoring defense and taking on the “Dark Side,” nickname. 

But an underrated aspect of the Patriots getting to the Super Bowl is what their defense has done, especially in the postseason. New England allowed a total of 26 points in its three wins on the way to the AFC title. 

Between the talent of both defenses and the style of both offenses, some Seahawks believe it could be an old-school-type game. Old school being all of 10 years ago. 

“Me and Jarran Reed even joked about how this feels like when we were young. Offenses back in the day used to be a little more run game, a little simpler, a little more straight to the point,” Seahawks defensive tackle Leonard Williams said. “You see a lot of West Coast, dynamic offenses nowadays that’s something a little different. But that’s something we respect about the Patriots. They want to win in the trenches and we feel like we based our team off that same principle.”

The big differentiator for the Patriots, though, is what Maye can do with his legs on top of his passing ability. While Williams is correct that New England wants to control things with its run game and the two-pronged attack of Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson, and dominate the line of scrimmage, the aspect of Maye’s running is something McDaniels never had when he was the coordinator during Brady’s tenure. 

Maye rushed for 450 yards and four touchdowns in the regular season and in two seasons has rushed for 871 yards. In 23 seasons as a player, Brady didn’t even top 1,200 total career yards as a runner. That’s on top of Maye passing for nearly 4,400 yards and 31 touchdowns in the regular season. 

“He can make all the throws, he can make all the reads. He can communicate to the line in terms of protections. But when all that fails, he can operate off script,” Seahawks safety Julian Love said. “You see him have a lot of success with his legs, still looking downfield, making plays, burning people. So complete rush-as-one type of game versus him and then in the secondary we just have to do what we do and cover as best we can.”

What Maye could do as a runner was one of the many things McDaniels had to learn how to exploit when he returned to the Patriots this season after taking a year off from coaching following his firing as the head coach in Las Vegas midway through the 2023 season. 

“I think an important part of our process this year was where is Drake? Where are we starting? And if we don’t know that, we’re probably going to make some mistakes early,” McDaniels said during Super Bowl Opening Night. “And, so, to figure out where he was at the very beginning of our process was important for us, because we knew where we were going to pick up and start from and then take it as far as we could.”

McDaniels was also asked about Seattle QB Sam Darnold in the context of coaches needing to remain patient. For Darnold, it was the patience in believing that the skills that made him a No. 3 pick in 2018 were still there even though he struggled so badly at the beginning of his career. 

But the same need for patience applied to Maye when McDaniels returned to New England and the need to remember that for all his talent, Maye is still only 23 years old.

“I think the quarterback success is, really, it kind of goes hand in hand with the fit, the system, the way they’re used, who’s coaching them, and then patience,” McDaniels said. “Some are more ready than others. Some are less ready than others. It doesn’t mean that they’re never going to be a really good player. So I think just how fast you expect them to play, what you’re asking of them on a day-to-day basis is important, because they’re just not going to be ready to do every single thing that you wish they could.”