SAN FRANCISCO — You wanted fresh blood in the Super Bowl, you got it.
No Chiefs band of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Andy Reid and … Taylor Swift.
No Rams head coach Sean McVay for the third time as a 40th birthday present.
No Eagles or 49ers making a third appearance of the 2020s.
Patriots-Seahawks in Super Bowl LX is familiar only in the basic definition of the word.
Here are the 11 storylines that will be dissected every which way over the next week:
Cold shoulder
Drake Maye, 23, is already the second-youngest quarterback (to Dan Marino) to reach a Super Bowl and can become the youngest winner (surpassing Ben Roethlisberger).
To do it, he is going to have to play through injury. He threw on a limited basis in Thursday’s practice (shoulder) and did not participate Friday (shoulder/illness).
No one expects Maye to miss the game, but there are 100 different ways to ask about pain tolerance and limitations … and you will hear them all. Perhaps this injury contributed to the MVP candidate being so off the mark (10-of-21 for 86 yards) in the AFC Championship game.
Sam Darnold’s redemption
File him under “ex-Jet now good.”
The Jets will take their lumps for giving up on Darnold — the No. 3 pick in the 2018 draft — but the timing entering his fourth season in 2021 and the trade return (from the Panthers) actually made sense. The bigger issue was replacing Darnold with Zach Wilson.
The Vikings (who let Darnold walk after a Pro Bowl season and fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah partially because of it) and Raiders (who didn’t believe in him as a free agent) have more egg to clean up.
Famous girlfriend
The first Swift-less Super Bowl in three years has rapper Cardi B — girlfriend and co-parent with Patriots receiver Stefon Diggs.
She was on the field after the AFC Championship game, yelling “We’re going to the Super Bowl!” but more controversially referred to a 4-year-old girl who picked the Broncos to win as a “b–ch.”
Will the NFL give Cardi B as much airtime as Swift received being at Travis Kelce’s side the last couple years?
Dynasty Deux
This is how it started last time for the Patriots.
Second-year quarterback. Head coach’s second act. Super Bowl underdogs. Doubts stemming from catching breaks (“Tuck Rule” then, all-time easy schedule now).
Is it going to turn into another six Super Bowl rings and 20-year partnership between Maye and Mike Vrabel?
Probably not. But America just got over Patriots fatigue.
Old guard
Bill Belichick’s ridiculous Hall of Fame snub hangs over the week. Especially if his boss-turned-nemesis — Patriots owner Robert Kraft — is inducted in this class ahead of his 11th Super Bowl appearance since buying the team in January 1994.
Vrabel will be asked what he thinks of Belichick’s snub, what he learned from eight seasons (three Super Bowl wins) playing for him and what it’s like to fill his legendary shoes.
Sixteen Belichick Era players remain.
Introducing new stars
The best matchup-within-the-matchup should be Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba (119 catches for an NFL-high 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns) against Pro Bowl cornerback Christian Gonzalez, whose interception sealed the AFC Championship game.
Gonzalez (No. 17) was selected four picks ahead of JSN (No. 20) in the 2023 draft. No. 5 in that class was Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon, a 2025 second-team All-Pro.
Where are they now?
The 2015 Super Bowl was a classic, though no players remain with the Patriots or Seahawks for the “rematch.”
The decisive play of the game was an interception on a pass thrown by Russell Wilson (a free agent after getting benched by the Giants last season) and called by Darrell Bevell (candidate for Jets offensive coordinator vacancy) for Pete Carroll (just fired by the Raiders) when he could’ve instead handed off to Marshawn Lynch (NFL-credentialed photographer) at the 1-yard line.
Malcolm Butler (high school football coach) caught the interception but hasn’t played an NFL game since 2020.
What’s a catch?
So, Brandin Cooks’ catch wasn’t a catch but rather an interception in the Bills-Broncos playoff game, but Cooper Kupp’s catch was a first-down catch despite the ball coming loose as he was getting tackled short of the sticks in the Seahawks-Rams game?
All clear?
Spotlight on Shawn Smith, who is refereeing his first Super Bowl, and replay officials. Smith’s crew threw 13.9 flags per game — sixth-lowest average in the NFL, per NFLPenalties.com. They are light on offensive holding but heavy on defensive pass interference.
New Macdonald
Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, 38, coached under one Harbaugh brother or the other from 2014-23. He graduated summa cum laude with a finance degree from Georgia and is the NFL’s second-youngest head coach.
Only Sean McVay and Mike Tomlin won Super Bowls at a younger age.
Macdonald’s offensive coordinator, Klint Kubiak, was just hired to be the next Raiders head coach.
Schneider stays
The Seahawks’ John Schneider is the first general manager to go back to the Super Bowl with an entirely new team and new head coach. That’s a complete rebuild.
Schneider drafted 12 of the 22 starters in the NFC Championship game, including 11 in the last four classes. He made two bold moves: trading Pro Bowler Geno Smith to clear the way for Darnold and trading DK Metcalf, believing in Smith-Njigba as a No. 1 receiver and adding Rashid Shaheed as a speed complement at the trade deadline.
Halftime show
The NFL’s choice of Bad Bunny — one of the most popular musical artists in the world — for the halftime show was met with immediate admonishment from the Trump administration because the Puerto Rican rapper has been a vocal critic of immigration policies.
A decade after Trump’s criticism of players kneeling during the national anthem influenced the NFL, the league stood by its Super Bowl halftime act. Bad Bunny’s lyrics are often Spanish, and the league is trying to increase its popularity within a Latino audience.