Super Bowl LX reminds us football's biggest game is bigger than the game itself | Telander

Can the Bears make a big addition this offseason? | Chicago Sports Tonight

ESPN Chicago's Jesse Rogers joined Tina Nguyen & Cassie Carlson on a Super Bowl Sunday edition of CST. The panel looks ahead to the Bears offseason and weighs who is a more likely acquisition target, Trey Hendrickson or Maxx Crosby? They recap the Bulls trade deadline; should this current regime get another chance to build? Also, Jesse gives his thoughts on the Cubs and White Sox as the teams get ready to report to Spring Training this week. Are the Cubs title contenders and who will be the opening day starter? Plus, how much impact will Munetaka Murakami have on the White Sox lineup and what are some realistic goals for the team as they build off the 2025 season.

Super Bowl XL was unusual in that it wasn’t about the quarterbacks. It was about the Seahawks defense and their squatty running back, Kenneth Walker III.

Seattle won 29-13, Walker had 161 yards in total offense – 135 rushing, 26 receiving – and journeyman Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold hung on to go down in history with Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Yep, say it weird: Sam Darnold, Super Bowl champ.

Sometimes it’s not about who you are in life, but where you are when it matters. Darnold, in his eighth year, has already played for five teams. But six sacks and two interceptions from the Seahawks "Legion of Doom" defense made his job relatively easy Sunday night.

Darnold completed 19 of 38 passes for 202 yards and a touchdown, pedestrian numbers. But he did what he had to, managed the game, let others do their work and reaped the reward.

It reminded veteran Super Bowl observers of Jeff Hostetler, Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson, Super Bowl champion quarterbacks whom no one would suggest were the greatest, but who knew how to not screw up when teammates can carry the load.

On a boredom scale, 0-to-10, I’d give this game a 7 or 8, maybe even a 9, since every time it looked like the Patriots might start to make the game exciting, the Seahawks swatted them away easily. Six sacks of Patriots quarterback Drake Maye plus two interceptions sealed the deal.

Though Maye threw for an impressive 295 yards, a lot of those yards came when it didn’t matter. And the pick-offs of key passes ruined any New England comeback chances.

And let me just say this: I’m not a fan of field goal kickers, or anybody’s field goal kicker. I apologize.

But, I often wonder how those guys, who likely never played the actual game of football – that is, blocking, catching, running, or tackling at a reasonably high level – somehow came to control the NFL sport.

Seahawks kicker Jason Myers, all 5-10 and 190 pounds of him, scored more points, 17, on five field goals and two extra points, than did the Patriots team. Myers could have given back a field goal and still scored more than the Pats. The 34-year-old was once a California state high school soccer champion, which, of course, explains how he became a kicker in the sport of … football.

Anyway, forgive me my prejudice. But when we’re talking about kickers, you know the game was a stinker. Unfortunately, the Seahawks have a defense that is tighter than a fat man’s belt. It made Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, the 2025 NFL Coach of the Year, by the way, look rather helpless. Maye was harassed nonstop, often by blitzes, and Vrabel and his staff seemed powerless to do anything about it.

Deep passes weren’t there. Maye either missed the short checkdown passes or was so flummoxed he forgot all his fundamentals and lost his accuracy.

Maye had a fantastic regular season, his second in the league, leading the Patriots to a 14-3 record, a ten-game improvement over their 2024 record of 4-13. Add three playoff wins and their 17-3 record entering the Super Bowl made for the biggest one-season turnaround in NFL history.

Too bad they had to meet up with the buzzsaw defense from the Northwest.

Seattle Seahawks' players celebrate with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after defeating the New England Patriots during Super Bowl LX at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California on February 8, 2026. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP via Getty Images)

Maybe none of it matters much. The Super Bowl is about a lot more things than a mere championship sporting event. Watching the whole shebang on television from pre-game to post-game led me to list these elements being extolled, promoted or forced down our gullets. In no particular order: violence, gambling, gluttony, music, military might, dancing, consumerism, all filtered through the lens of raw, unadulterated capitalism.

Oh, and of course, the ads themselves.

I stopped counting after a while, but randomly I got Red Bull, DraftKings, T-Mobile, McDonald’s, Uber Eats, Levis, Microsoft, Turbotax, Dunkin’, Grubhub, Hellman’s Mayonnaise, Cadillac, Pringles, Ritz Crackers, Bueno candy bars, Genspark AI, Bud Light, Claude, Lay’s potato chips, and Jesus.

Two of my favorites were the talking toilet seat asking us to check our pee to see if we needed to load up on Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier. Get that stream clear as glass, people! And gotta love Serena Williams giving herself a shot of the GLP-1 medication Zepbound, treatment which has enabled her to allegedly lose 33 pounds, about what you’d gain if you routinely ate all the stuff advertised on gameday.

Then there was Bad Bunny doing up Puerto Rico and white suits at halftime, leaving me with one prime thought: Why’d I take German in high school?

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The Source: This article was written by Rick Telander, a contributing sports columnist for FOX Chicago.

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