Super Bowl LX: Seahawks-Patriots matchup preview, prediction - ESPN

On Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots will meet in Super Bowl LX. But we might as well call it the Explosive Play Bowl.

The big play has always mattered, but in the past few years, NFL games have become battlefields between teams trying to create and prevent explosive plays. Defenses, tormented by quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, have leaned into Vic Fangio-style philosophies and continued to raise their rates of two-high safety looks, funneling teams toward the run and short passes. Teams played two-deep shells more than 45% of the time on early downs in 2025, up from 38% in 2020 and 35% in 2017.

Offenses have evolved too. They've taken what the defense has given, running the ball more often and with more efficiency than in past years. Quarterbacks have been forced to make small profits and take the safer pass. With a leaguewide increase in willingness to go for it on fourth down, third-and-short has become an opportunity to hit those explosives, while third-and-medium has become a situation where the run is still in play.

The league's rule changes have also altered the way teams play offense. The move to a dynamic kickoff and placing touchbacks at the 30-yard line (in 2024) and 35-yard line (in 2025) have made it more difficult to play the field position game as a defense. The average drive after a kickoff starts with 69.3 yards to go for a touchdown, 5 full yards ahead of where it was five years ago.

The league also changed the rules for preparing K-balls during the week, which has combined with better technique and a generation of stronger-legged kickers to create compressed fields. Even as recently as 15 years ago, NFL teams were punting if their drives were stopped short of the