SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- At one point early in Super Bowl LX, you could easily read Mike Vrabel's lips: "Calm down," he said, over and over, addressing his rattled offense.
They were struggling in pass protection, although that wasn't really anything new. Drake Maye had been sacked 47 times in the regular season and five times in each of the New England Patriots' previous three playoff games. This was more than that. This was a suffocation, a parade of blitzes using Devon Witherspoon from a Seattle Seahawks team that hadn't heavily relied on the blitz all season, a pummeling that undid Maye, sending the MVP runner-up into a tailspin that he hadn't before suffered, at the hands of an all-time defensive performance in the Super Bowl.
The Patriots never did calm down.
And when the dam eventually broke, when Maye was sacked for the fifth time and fumbled, it led to the touchdown that all but put the game out of reach early in the fourth quarter. The final score was 29-13, but it felt much more lopsided than that, like every drive for the Patriots might as well have been 300 yards long. Their first five drives ended in punts. Their sixth ended at halftime.
Then three more punts and a fumble before, finally, a touchdown. Which was followed by two straight interceptions.
Maye looked so perplexed by what he was seeing that he held the ball too long, and threw it errantly. He hadn't played like that all season. Maye, who entered the game dealing with a right shoulder injury -- one that called for a pain-killing shot prior to game time -- finished 27-of-43 passing for 295 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, but he had only 48 passing yards in the first half, meaning most of Maye's statistical production came with the Patriots trailing by double digits. Neither Maye nor his Seattle counterpart Sam Darnold played well -- the Patriots defense harassed Darnold, too. The difference is that Darnold managed to avoid disaster -- no more seeing ghosts there -- or hand the ball to Kenneth Walker III just enough to give the Seahawks a lead. It was, for the Patriots, one of the worst offensive performances we've ever seen in a Super Bowl.
"I'd like to go back to the beginning and redo it," said Maye, who held back tears as he spoke to reporters.
It was the biggest beatdown of the season for the Patriots, and it exposed weaknesses that the Patriots had been able to overcome all season: a suspect offensive line and a lack of top-end offensive weapons, which will certainly be priorities now that another offseason has begun.
"This game, I don't think, was a reflection of our year," head coach Mike Vrabel said.
That was certainly true. The Patriots look like a charmed team all season, one that was a year or more ahead of schedule. They played the easiest strength of schedule in the league, but it was more than that. They prevailed in the playoffs without a dominant offensive performance. They did not have to face any of the premier AFC quarterbacks playing at their peak in the playoffs. They faced a Chargers team with an injured Justin Herbert and an injury-decimated offensive line. In the AFC Championship Game, they faced Jarrett Stidham instead of Bo Nix and even then, it took a questionable decision by Sean Payton to not kick a field goal for the Patriots to win. None of that is to minimize the Patriots -- theirs was an extraordinary turnaround from a four-win team, fueled by the arrival of Vrabel, the rise of Maye under Josh McDaniels' tutelage, and a remarkably successful free-agent class of signings. But they ran into a Seahawks team that looked like one of the best teams in the league all season, that had been sharpened by playing in a more difficult division, that had the league's best scoring defense, that ended the season on a 10-game winning streak that included six victories by at least 10 points.
"We got beat by a good --- team," Patriots receiver Stefon Diggs.
Despite the outcome, though, there is plenty of reason for the Patriots to be optimistic. Maye is young -- and, in a rarity he looked it on Sunday night -- and he will only get better. Vrabel is the best coach in the AFC East and among the best in the NFL. And the Buffalo Bills, their biggest competition in the division, have a new coach and a quarterback who will be 30 years old. That is no solace right now, but the future is unquestionably bright.
"We're 307 days into what is hopefully a long, successful relationship," Vrabel said. "It's okay to be disappointed."
And, he said, to remember the feeling so it is not repeated.
Looking at Maye's devastation after he had played the worst game of his pro career, there seemed little chance he would forget this. Maye's Cinderella season had crashed head on into a wall made of Seattle defenders, and the Patriots will spend the next few months trying to fortify themselves against future collisions like it. The Patriots won an astounding 13 more games than they did last season, including playoffs. They will need to win just one more next season.
"This is fuel," Maye said. "If it's not, then I don't know what this feeling would do for you. Because this is tough."
