Super Bowl 2026 preview: Can Seahawks stop Patriots’ bid to make history?

The NFL’s 2025 season has provided the most wide-open race for the Super Bowl in years.

Now just the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks remain and they will meet on Sunday to decide the NFL champions.

It is a title New England have held six times but this is their first Super Bowl since 2019 and the departure of legendary quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick.

A revitalised Patriots team have come from nowhere to reach Super Bowl 60 in California and secure a record-extending 12th appearance in the NFL showpiece.

The Seahawks have reached their fourth Super Bowl, and their first since 2015, when the Patriots denied them back-to-back championships.

Now a Briton could become the first overseas coach to win arguably the biggest game in world sport having helped turn Seattle back into title contenders.

There will also be a historic half-time show from a Latin superstar amid concerns over how US immigration agents handle an event which for each of the past three years has been the most-watched broadcast in American television history.

Brady and head coach Belichick led New England to nine Super Bowls between 2002 and 2019, winning six.

That tied the record for most Super Bowl wins with the Pittsburgh Steelers so the Patriots will go clear if they win at Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara.

Last season, New England finished with a 4-13 record under Jerod Mayo, who was replaced by another coach who won the Super Bowl as a player with the Patriots, Mike Vrabel.

The ex-Tennessee Titans coach rebuilt the Patriots’ roster and they improved to 14-3. That 10-win swing is tied for the biggest turnaround from one season to the next – and the Patriots are the first of those teams to reach the Super Bowl.

Former linebacker Vrabel, 50, can also become the first man to win a Super Bowl as a player and head coach with the same team.

New England’s Drake Maye grew up in North Carolina and attended the previous Super Bowl held at Levi’s Stadium 10 years ago.

A 13-year-old Maye and his father watched the Carolina Panthers lose to Denver. Now he returns to Santa Clara as one of the top candidates for this season’s Most Valuable Player award.

Maye is the ninth second-year quarterback to reach the Super Bowl and aims to become the first to win it since Russell Wilson with Seattle in 2014. At 23, he will also be the second youngest QB to start a Super Bowl after Dan Marino in 1985.

Like Maye, Seattle’s current quarterback Sam Darnold was also the third overall pick when he was drafted in 2018 but his NFL journey has become a redemption story.

After struggling with the New York Jets, then Carolina, Darnold spent the 2023 season as the San Francisco 49ers’ back-up, before being thrust into the starters’ job at Minnesota.

Darnold led the Vikings to the play-offs last season but, with JJ McCarthy returning from injury, he joined Seattle in the off-season and has become just the second QB after Brady to have back-to-back 14-win seasons – and 28-year-old Darnold is the first to do it with different teams.

New England, Seattle and Denver shared the regular season’s best record of 14-3, but despite their history and having an MVP contender at quarterback, the Patriots are Super Bowl underdogs for the first time since Brady won his first in 2002.

Seattle are strong favourites with the bookmakers having emerged from the ultra-competitive NFC West division to clinch the NFC’s top seed, before beating divisional rivals San Francisco and the Los Angeles Rams again in the play-offs.

Darnold has formed a devastating connection with Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who led the league for receiving yards, and Seattle’s defence allowed the fewest points (17.2 per game).

The team which claimed the Seahawks’ one Super Bowl win in 2014 was renowned for its Legion of Boom defence.

In two seasons, head coach Mike Macdonald and his defensive coordinator, British coach Aden Durde, have created a modern version. It even has its own nickname too – the Dark Side.

Puerto Rican pop star Bad Bunny will be the first solo male Latin artist to perform the half-time show and is expected to be the first to perform their set entirely in Spanish.

The 31-year-old was Spotify’s most streamed artist in four of the past six years. He is also an actor, has hosted Saturday Night Live and been a WWE 24/7 champion.

American rock band Green Day, who hail from the San Francisco Bay Area, will play an opening ceremony to help usher Super Bowl MVPs onto the field.

Both they and Bad Bunny have been critics of US president Donald Trump and his administration, with the singer saying he avoided the US on his current world tour because of concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents would conduct raids on fans at his concerts.

Bad Bunny and British singer Olivia Dean were among those to comment on immigration as they accepted Grammy awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Trump became the first sitting president to attend America’s biggest game last year when he watched the Philadelphia Eagles prevent a Kansas City Chiefs three-peat in New Orleans.

Trump told the New York Post that he will not be attending this year, though, as the game at the home of the San Francisco 49ers is «just too far away».

Asked about the Super Bowl performers, Trump added: «I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred.»

Turning Point USA, which was co-founded by late Trump ally Charlie Kirk, says it will be holding an alternative half-time show but is yet to confirm details.

There is also confusion over whether ICE agents will be deployed around the Super Bowl, with government and local officials giving conflicting information.

Protests have taken place across America after ICE agents recently shot dead Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. It is unclear if there will be more protests in the Bay Area this week.

Super Bowl 60 will kick-off on Sunday at 23:30 GMT and be broadcast live on Channel 5, Sky Sports and DAZN.

You can listen to live radio coverage on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra and BBC Sounds and follow live text coverage via the BBC Sport website and app.

NBC will be the host broadcasters this year in the US, where last year’s game attracted an average audience of 127.7 million.