From XLIX to LX: How the league has changed since the last Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
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Summary
Eleven years ago, the Patriots and Seahawks met in one of the most iconic Super Bowls of all-time. Those two teams seemed to define the league back then, with Tom Brady and the Patriots dynasty on one side, and the Legion of Boom defense on the other. The league looks quite a bit different now, and not just in the way that things set a decade apart are bound to be different. So how has the league changed in the 11 intervening years between Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowls? Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman consider that question on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
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Host: Robert Mays
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Video Producer: Katy Duffy
Audio Producer: Michael Beller
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
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Follow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.social
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:05.2 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:06.8 | Radio Row, Super Bowl time, rolls on today. |
| 0:10.7 | We're doing something a little bit different on today's show. |
| 0:13.1 | We've talked a lot about this game over the course of this week so far. |
| 0:16.3 | We're going to talk more about this game on tomorrow's show. |
| 0:19.5 | Today, we're doing a look back. Because we've seen this |
| 0:22.7 | Super Bowl before, the Patriots and the Seahawks, I thought this would be a good opportunity |
| 0:27.5 | to look at how the NFL feels different and is different in 2025 compared to what the league |
| 0:34.2 | looked like in 2014. This is a very open-ended conversation. I kind of just, |
| 0:39.1 | we gave this prompt and Dave and Derek went with it in whatever way they wanted to. And so |
| 0:43.0 | some of this is schematic. Some of this is the makeup of certain player and coaching pools in the |
| 0:48.8 | NFL. Some of this is decision-making based. So there are a lot of different layers and a lot of |
| 0:53.8 | different buckets that we took this |
| 0:55.9 | conversation to. |
| 0:57.0 | Just what feels different about football and about professional football now compared to |
| 1:02.0 | what it felt like in 2014. |
| 1:03.5 | Very much enjoyed this discussion with both of those guys. |
| 1:06.5 | Let's get to it right now. |
| 1:12.1 | Welcome to the athletic football Show coming to you guys live from Radio Row here in San Francisco. |
| 1:17.9 | I think it's Media Row now. |
| 1:20.4 | I think that's what the signs say. |
... |
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