JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
With all due respect to tonight's festivities in Italy, we are now two days away from the year's biggest American sporting event. That's right. It is Super Bowl time. And this year's Super Bowl will see the Seattle Seahawks facing the New England Patriots. It's a rematch of the 2015 game, which came down to the last minute. Though, at the start of this season, nobody probably would have predicted these two teams would be back here again. So for our Super Bowl preview, we called on Nora Princiotti. She's a senior staff writer at The Ringer. Hi there.
NORA PRINCIOTTI: Hi there. Thanks for having me.
SUMMERS: Your analysis is headlined, the year the NFL crashed out. I personally think that's pretty fitting. You write that this matchup is a fitting outcome for an entire season of subverted expectations. And from your perspective, what made this whole season so unexpected?
PRINCIOTTI: Well, so the basics are, at the beginning of the year, the idea that teams like the Patriots, even the Seahawks, the Panthers, would all be playing in the playoffs and the Chiefs and the Lions and the Ravens - like, perennial powerhouses - wouldn't be. Absolutely nobody would have seen it coming. Both of these Super Bowl teams had no better than 60 to 1 odds to make the Super Bowl at the beginning of the season, which makes this, in that sense, the least likely Super Bowl matchup ever. So it was a very chaotic year to watch. You felt like you never knew who was going to win, you know, any given Sunday. That axiom was truer than ever this year.
SUMMERS: I want to talk about each team specifically, starting with the Patriots, who, I will just say, have struggled a little bit in the years since losing quarterback Tom Brady, head coach Bill Belichick. I mean, they were 4 and 13 last season. How did they turn it around and wind up here?
PRINCIOTTI: So the first reason they were able to turn it around is certainly their young quarterback Drake May, who, I don't think at the beginning of the season, anyone anticipated would be, you know, a top MVP candidate, but who even at that point seemed like someone who could develop into a quarterback of the future in New England. It just happened faster than anyone anticipated.
The other thing is that Mike Vrabel, their first year head coach, has completely reenergized the team. He, I think, has just made winning feel very possible for a team that - it sounds crazy because it's the Patriots we're talking about. It had been a really kind of dramatic and tortured couple of years there, so he's just turned things around so quickly.
SUMMERS: Let's talk about the Seahawks now. They found an unexpected quarterback to lead their offense in Sam Darnold. And he's been up and down in his eight seasons in the NFL, and in fact, he was traded to Seattle before this season. How'd he find his footing?
PRINCIOTTI: So he found his footing, I think, because the offensive coordinator in Seattle, Klint Kubiak, has been able to harness what has sort of been the blessing and the curse of Sam Darnold as he's had this very up and down career up to this point, which is that he's a very boom or bust guy. He takes chances. And so the Seahawks are a really good fit for that type of style because their defense is good enough that they can kind of compensate for some of that if he makes mistakes occasionally when they need to. But they've really embraced his style, and along with some of their explosive playmakers on offense, like Jackson Smith-Njigba and Kenneth Walker, they've been able to be this kind of high-octane team that makes these really exciting plays and then can rely on their very good defense.
SUMMERS: All right. Let's talk keys to the game, starting with the Seahawks. What do you think they need to do to win?
PRINCIOTTI: I think they need to let Darnold be Darnold, but avoid mistakes, avoid too many mistakes. He does still, like we were talking about, have in his DNA that he can get rattled. So I think the biggest thing is, if something bad happens, finding ways to just steady the ship and not let it spiral into something that gets out of control.
And then for the Patriots, I think it's finding explosive plays on offense because the Seahawks defense is just too good to expect consistent, every down, moving the chains type of success. But if they can hit enough big plays, then they can stay in the game and let their own defense, which is very good too, try to help them get a win.
SUMMERS: All right, and last thing quickly, Nora, I do have to ask for your prediction. Who do you think walks away with the win?
PRINCIOTTI: I think Seattle. I think they've gone through more of a gauntlet to get here and are an overall better-rounded team. Seahawks, 27; Patriots 21.
SUMMERS: All right, looking forward to watching. Nora Princiotti of The Ringer, thanks so much.
PRINCIOTTI: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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