Evolving

It was a particularly tough Super Bowl for me this year. The Seahawks who are a 49er division rival ended up taking on the Patriots who just came out of a ridiculously long dynasty. It was effectively a lose-lose situation for me and I wish both teams can lose.

After all said the done though, I do have a ton of respect and envy on what the Seahawks were able to accomplish with their defense. That was about as an elite defensive performance in a big game that you will see. They’ve been doing it all year long and it peaked in the Super Bowl.

With that, the NFL may have just become a defensive league again with the last two Super Bowl champions basically being crowned because of their defenses. In the last 10 years, the league has been offensive focused with these innovative offenses combined with more mobile and athletic quarterbacks. The poster boy of that is Patrick Mahomes.

However, it seems like the guard can be changing a bit. The Seahawks dominated defensively by effectively playing a zone defense keeping everything in front of them while letting their elite defensive line get to the QB. These defenses seem to built to kill these innovative offenses that we’ve seen in the last 5-10 years.

It’ll be interesting to watch and see how the league evolves. Do teams try to copy the Seahawks and we enter into a defensive era? Can any teams adapt and figure out how to beat this style of defense with their current set-up? Or will teams look to go back perhaps to a different style of offense and maybe look towards the “old school” taller quarterback with big arms?

The evolution will be interesting to watch. It’s a reminder that nothing ever stays the same, even if it feels like things cyclical. What’s old may be new again soon.