It’s Super Bowl week, so I figured it’s finally time to talk about the Super Bowl. Here’s the question I want you folks to answer today: Who are you rooting for in Super Bowl LX?
Between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, I’ll be rooting for the Patriots. I have little to no trauma linked to the Patriots in my lifetime. Meanwhile, I will remember the 2014 NFC Championship Game on my deathbed. On top of that…I live in the Northwest. This is a no-brainer to me.
There are few ties to the Packers
on these teams, too. If Davante Adams had advanced to the Super Bowl for the first time in his career, I probably would be rooting for the Los Angeles Rams. Instead, the notable former Packers in this game are former front office members John Schneider (in Green Bay from 1993-1996, 2002-2009) and Eliot Wolf (2004-2017), who, depending on who you talk to in the industry, have varying influence on the roster.
The story told about Schneider is that Pete Carroll was notified by ownership to clean house after the 2023 regular season, for Carroll to keep his job. This meant the coaching staff and front office. Carroll, instead, chose to step down (officially branded as “mutually parted ways”) and advised leadership to let Schneider run his own program. From 2013 to 2021, Schneider only made four first-round picks: Germain Ifedi, Rashaad Penny, L.J. Collier and Jordyn Brooks. From 2022 on, he’s bounced back, hitting on Charles Cross, Devon Witherspoon, Jaxson Smith-Njigba, Byron Murphy II and Grey Zabel, though it did help that all five of those selections were made in the top-20 selections of the draft.
Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel was one of the two hottest coaching candidates in the 2025 hire cycle, along with Ben Johnson. He was able to make some organizational demands, like Jim Harbaugh has done with the New York Giants this offseason. While Wolf was retained in New England, he doesn’t officially hold the general manager role (the Patriots just haven’t had a “general manager” since Bill Belichick was fired). Vrabel also brought in Ryan Cowden, who was in Tennessee with Vrabel from 2018 to 2022, to serve in the same vice president of player personnel role with the Patriots. Cowden was also the interim general manager of the Titans in 2022, after the firing of Jon Robinson.
There’s some debate in the scouting community about how much power Wolf or Cowden has with the Patriots, from a personnel standpoint, but most acknowledge that no matter who is stirring the drink front office-wise, it’s really a team made in the image of Vrabel.
As far as the actual players go, the players with Green Bay ties are players like Seahawks defensive tackle Jarran Reed, who didn’t do much in the green and gold.
Who you got? I think Seattle will win, but I’m rooting for New England.
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