I’m currently working on my 23rd Super Bowl preview. That should run in the middle of next week, a few days before Super Bowl Sunday, but this means waiting more than a week before unveiling all the stat tidbits that get you ready for the big matchup. It was one thing when I was the only person on the Internet doing a Super Bowl preview packed with advanced stats. Now you can get all kinds of advanced metrics from all kinds of websites. So I now produce a pre-preview each year to get you ready for the Super Bowl hype. This is just me emptying my notebook with a few of the cool stat splits that I’ve found while preparing our Super Bowl LX preview. These stats will all appear again when we get to the actual Super Bowl preview next week.
First of all, as I’ve noted numerous times over the past few weeks, the Seattle Seahawks are a historically great team according to our DVOA ratings. This article contains a list of the top teams in DVOA including the playoffs. Right now, the Seahawks are behind the 1991 Redskins, 1985 Bears, 2007 Patriots and 1989 49ers. They are tied with the 1996 Packers.
However, in our weighted DVOA ratings that include the playoffs and are more weighted toward recent games, the Patriots are currently the No. 2 team. They’ve climbed significantly since the regular season, as they finished ninth overall. The Patriots’ worst games were all early in the year, and they had the biggest gap between full-season DVOA and weighted DVOA of any playoff team ever.
Here is a list of playoff teams with the biggest gap between total and weighted DVOA. 2025 Patriots are No. 1.
These teams were hot entering the playoffs but you have to go down a bit to find one that made the Super Bowl.
2025 Bears would be at 8.9% difference. (2/2)
[image or embed]
— Aaron Schatz (@aaronschatz.com) January 7, 2026 at 2:13 PM
The difference is particularly strong on defense, as the Patriots’ last five games have been their five best defensive games of the year.
The Patriots have gotten their pass defense going by upping their blitz tendencies. In the regular season, the Patriots only blitzed 27.4% of the time, which ranked 19th in the NFL. In the postseason, they have blitzed 41.4% of the time. This looks like a good strategy against Sam Darnold. During the regular season, Darnold had only -1.0% passing DVOA when blitzed, which ranked 23rd among qualifying quarterbacks. Even last week, when he had that great performance against the Rams, Darnold was 4-for-7 for 47 yards and a touchdown with two sacks on nine Rams blitzes, worth -4.0% DVOA.
One way to stop blitzes is with the quick game, but Darnold was not very good on the quick game compared to other quarterbacks. He had 15.0% DVOA on quick throws, which ranked only 27th. (The league average on quick throws is higher than 0.0%, because they are completed at a high rate and of course no sacks are included.) The Patriots defense was only 18th in DVOA on quick throws, but like everything else with the Patriots defense that improves if you only look at the second half of the season plus the playoffs (to seventh). Meanwhile, on the other side, Drake Maye was sixth with 40.5% DVOA with the quick game but the Seahawks defense was No. 1 allowing only -9.3% DVOA to quick throws. The Seahawks were one of only two defenses to allow negative DVOA to quick throws during the regular season, along with Minnesota.
Darnold significantly declined in the second half of the year, even including last week against the Rams. How much he declined depends on where you draw the line, because he was very good in Week 9 when the Seahawks returned from their Week 8 bye. If you draw the line after that game, the Seahawks declined from first to 11th in pass offense DVOA. However, their running game has been much better… except last week, when the passing game was so good.
Seattle Offensive DVOA, 2025
Weeks
DVOA
Rk
Pass
Rk
Run
Rk
Weeks 1-9
20.8%
5
62.0%
1
-11.4%
24
Weeks 10-21
4.2%
11
20.1%
11
2.4%
7
Both Maye and Darnold had similar performance against man and zone coverage, and both the Seahawks defense and the Patriots defense had similar performance when using man and zone coverage. As with all Patriots defensive stats, the DVOA is better in the second half of the season and the playoffs with both man and zone coverage.
These were the two best teams during the regular season when it came to offensive passing efficiency on first downs. The Seahawks ranked fourth in defense against first-down passes. The Patriots ranked a dismal 29th, but this is another stat that looks a lot different without the start of the season. Since Week 10, and including the playoffs, the Patriots have a better defensive DVOA against first-down passes (-15.2%) than the Seahawks (-8.0%) in the same time period.
Drake Maye and Sam Darnold ranked second and third this year in DVOA on deep passes of 16 or more air yards.
Both the Patriots and the Seahawks offenses were better in the first quarter than they were the rest of the game. Including the playoffs, the Seahawks were third in the first quarter and 10th the rest of the game, while the Patriots were fourth in the first quarter and sixth the rest of the game.
The Seahawks were susceptible this year on passes to tight ends. They allowed an opponent-adjusted 64 yards per game to tight ends during the regular season, ranking 16th in DVOA. They’ve allowed 134 yards to tight ends in two playoff games, although they also have an interception and two forced fumbles on those passes.
Here’s a bad weakness to have against the Seahawks passing game: the Patriots ranked 31st during the regular season in DVOA covering No. 1 receivers. That’s not specifically a Christian Gonzalez stat, as the Patriots didn’t have Gonzalez following the opposing WR1 as much as he did last season. Now, what’s interesting is how that changed over the course of the year. In the first half of the season, the Patriots allowed 40.5% DVOA to WR1s on 68 targets. In the second half of the season, the Patriots allowed an even worse 62.8% DVOA but on only 28 targets. The Patriots defense moved to discourage opponents from throwing to WR1s but they had a lot of success when they were able to get those stars open. In the playoffs, the Patriots have -10.9% DVOA on 23 targets to WR1, although WR1 was tough to define with the Chargers (Quentin Johnston) and Texans (Jayden Higgins because Nico Collins was out).
The Patriots ranked only 30th in offensive DVOA on third- or fourth-and-short. The Seahawks defense was No. 1 in that same split.
New England also has problems on defense in short yardage. During the regular season, the Patriots were dead last in preventing conversions on short-yardage runs at 85%. They also have allowed 5-for-6 conversions on short-yardage runs in the postseason. The Seahawks converted on 70% of these runs, which ranked 11th.
An important tidbit against Drake Maye: The Seahawks were second in the league in DVOA when the opposing quarterback scrambled, but they faced 43 scrambles which was near the top of the league. Including the playoffs, quarterbacks are averaging 6.9 yards per scramble with a 50% success rate (compared to league averages of 7.5 and 59%).
Based on adjusted line yards, the Patriots have an advantage when they run to the right side. They rank seventh in ALY on runs listed as right tackle and fifth on runs listed as right end. Seattle’s defense is fifth on runs listed as right tackle but 17th on runs listed as right end.
Seattle has a clear advantage on special teams, but not as big as the advantage they had over the Rams. The Patriots were roughly average in special teams DVOA. They are very good on punt returns with Marcus Jones. But they have real problems on kickoffs and punts. Punter Bryce Baringer was particularly bad against Denver in the AFC Championship Game. Andy Borregales was fine on field goals but the Patriots’ gross kickoff value was the second lowest in the league ahead of only the Rams. Seattle shines in kickoff coverage, on punts with Michael Dickson and on kickoff and punt returns with Rashid Shaheed.
If the Seahawks lose the Super Bowl, they will become the second-best regular-season team by DVOA to lose in the final game, surpassing the 2023 49ers and sitting only behind the 2007 Patriots.
I’ll have a lot more to say in my official Super Bowl preview coming next week. Remember that you can look through a lot of these stats yourself with an FTN StatsHub subscription!
