The answer was in plain sight all along.
Well, that’s according to NFL fans currently entranced with a Super Bowl 2026 image posted in September that resurfaced Sunday night after the Patriots and Seahawks punched their tickets to the big game in Santa Clara.
In the graphic, originally shared by the league in Week 1 of the 2025 regular season, Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold and the Patriots’ Drake Maye are standing at the front of the pack of their NFL peers en route to Levi’s Stadium, where Super Bowl 2026 will take place in less than two weeks.
Sam Darnold and Drake Maye are at the front of the pack of their NFL peers in a Super Bowl LX photo originally published in September 2025. X / NFL
The image sent social media into a frenzy following Sunday’s AFC and NFC title games, with the Patriots topping the Broncos and the Seahawks downing the Rams, respectively.
“The script writers have done it again,” Jacob Morley of Packer Report posted on X.
“Little did they know that the two guys they put closest to the trophy and furthest from the audience viewpoint would be the two Quarterbacks in the Super Bowl,” former NFL quarterback-turned-analyst Robert Griffin III wrote on the platform.
The image gave another user “chills.”
Patriots QB Drake Maye is playing in his first Super Bowl to cap off his second season in the league. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
“This graphic is from September???” NFL writer and insider John Frascella wrote on X. “Wait… zoom in… Is that Sam Darnold and Drake Maye at the front, closest to the Super Bowl trophy? Chills, man… chills.”
The Santa Clara matchup will be a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX, when a Malcolm Butler interception sealed New England’s 28-24 triumph over the Seahawks in February 2015.
The win marked another ring for Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, while Russell Wilson and Pete Carroll came up short after a Super Bowl victory the previous year, a 43-8 domination over the Broncos.
New quarterbacks and coaches are at the helm this time around, with Maye and first-year Patriots coach Mike Vrabel squaring off against Darnold and second-year Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald.
Sam Darnold is in his first season with the Seahawks. Getty Images
Darnold — who previously reached Super Bowl 2024 with the 49ers as Brock Purdy’s backup — is enjoying a career revival that he began to author with the Vikings last season.
He signed a three-year deal with the Seahawks in free agency last March and helped Seattle clinch the top seed in the NFC.
Meanwhile, Vrabel orchestrated a swift turnaround in New England after a 4-13 calamity, with Maye emerging as an MVP candidate for a stellar sophomore season.
Super Bowl 2026 kicks off at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 8.
