The 2025-26 NFL season has come to an end, and the Seattle Seahawks are Super Bowl champions after their 29-13 trouncing of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX.
New York Jets fans had to watch their former quarterback, Sam Darnold, win a Super Bowl, while plenty of other former Jets players had key moments in the biggest game of the year. Darnold wasn’t the sole reason the Seahawks won the Super Bowl, but he was a key part of Seattle’s victory, a far cry from his tenure with the Jets.
There are plenty of lessons for the Jets to learn from Seattle’s Super Bowl victory, one few people saw coming before the season.
Invest in the defensive line
The biggest reason why Seattle won Super Bowl LX was that they controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.
Offensively, running back Kenneth Walker won Super Bowl MVP honors with over 150 yards of total offense.
Seattle’s defensive line, though, was the real winner. The Seahawks sacked Drake Maye six times while forcing three turnovers en route to a Super Bowl blowout. They got consistent pressure from the pass rushers, and disguised their coverage well when they blitzed.
The lesson for the Jets is simple: invest in the defensive line. New York’s offensive line seems pretty set at the moment. So long as they stay healthy, the unit should remain strong.
It’s their defensive line, though, that remains a real issue. The Jets need to address the edge rusher and defensive tackle roles as much as possible going forward. Building from the defensive line is important to match what Seattle did this year.
The Jets aren’t just a QB away
If you don’t have a top-five quarterback in the NFL, then you need to make sure your team is better than the opposition at almost every other position.
That’s the rule the Seahawks exemplified this year. Darnold will not be mistaken for an all-time great quarterback, but he did enough to win a championship for a team that was elite in every key area, including their defensive front, secondary, receiving core, and offensive line.
When a team is elite in that many categories, Super Bowls can come without elite play at the quarterback position.
The Jets certainly need a new quarterback. No one will deny that. But what they also need is stability and excellence from the rest of the roster to allow their new quarterback to play at a high level.
Patience is a virtue
Would the Jets have ever won a Super Bowl with Darnold as their starting quarterback? Probably not. It took Darnold over seven years to show he could be a competent quarterback in this league.
What his run in Seattle does show, though, is that patience is a virtue with young quarterbacks when you surround them with talent and the right scheme.
In the modern NFL, too many teams are willing to restart the quarterback conversation rather than allow players to develop. It’s an unfortunate reason why so many have struggled in recent years.
The best way for that to change is for teams like the Jets to do what Seattle did: be patient enough to let players grow in the system.
And watch the confetti fly.