The 5 overlooked players who could swing Super Bowl 60
· Yahoo Sports
We know who the superstars will be in Super Bowl 60. The New England Patriots will hope for a revival from slumping 2025 NFL MVP candidate Drake Maye and the continued excellence of the defense that's put them back in the big game. The Seattle Seahawks will counter with Sam Darnold, potential offensive player of the year Jaxon Smith-Njigba and a defense that shines brightly enough to ward off seasonal depression.
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Those players can't win a world championship on their own. They'll need someone to rise up next to them and tilt the scale in their team's favor with dynamic play. Sometimes it will be obvious. Others, like a perfect block to provide just the right amount of breathing room for a deep ball to find its target, it will be hidden in the trenches.
Let's try and identify the players who aren't quite household names put could swing possession of the Vince Lombardi Trophy with a few big moments. We'll take a look at some underrated contributors from either team on both sides of the ball.
Seahawks offense: G Grey Zabel
While Zabel doesn't play a premium position like teammates Abe Lucas or Charles Cross, his ability to rise to the occasion as a rookie Super Bowl starter could define how the Seattle offense operates. The Patriots get a huge surge from their 3-technique defensive linemen who line up in the outside gap between tackle and guard. Christian Barmore and Milton Williams each had top-three pressure rates among non-edge rushing defensive linemen. While they only had 5.5 sacks between them, they're a rising tide up front.
They're also key parts of a rushing defense that's allowed only 3.1 yards per carry during the playoffs. Kenneth Walker III's best work comes between the tackles, which puts even more of a spotlight on Zabel.
He's up for the task. No interior lineman in the game had a better run-blocking win rate than the rookie, per ESPN. Walker's electric jukes only work if he has space to fool defenders. Zabel has been making sure that's the case all season.
The question will be whether his pass blocking can match against a defense that's been vital to New England's postseason success. A dynamic pass rush has made quarterbacks like Justin Herbert, C.J. Stroud and, phew, Jarrett Stidham look stupid en route to its return to the Super Bowl. That group has 12 sacks in the postseason behind a 36.1 percent pressure rate and a 38.3 percent blitz rate, though those numbers are skewed by a defense that pinned its ears back against Stidham because, come on, he's Jarrett Stidham.
The good news is that Zabel and company repelled the playoffs' toughest pass run to win the NFC title. The bad news is Darnold was still pressured on every three out of eight dropbacks (37.5 percent). That wasn't a problem in arguably the best performance of his career to date, but it could be in Santa Clara. Darnold ranked eighth in the NFL with 0.33 expected points added (EPA) per dropback from a clean pocket. That dropped to 28th place at -0.58 EPA/snap with static in the pocket.
If Zabel can continue to thrive, he'll create the space the Seahawks need to win a rock fight or keep pace in a shootout. Also, apropos of nothing:
Neat.
Patriots offense: WR Kayshon Boutte
Boutte isn't anonymous, but he's not a household name outside the northeast. The former sixth-round pick ranked fifth on the roster with 33 receptions. He found a way to maximize that impact as one of Drake Maye's most trusted targets.
Boutte is rarely open but still manages to make a difference with absurd contested catch skills. The obvious highlight was the dagger that helped put away the Houston Texans in the Divisional Round:
Boutte's average separation per target of 2.3 yards ranked 132nd out of 142 qualified receivers in 2025. His 1.47 yards per route run (YPRR) ranked 58th, even with just 42 yards after catch (142nd-best, 25 yards behind 141st place Darnell Mooney). The majority of Boutte targets are into tight windows. The majority of Boutte targets are caught, roughly 15-plus yards downfield. He had 33 receptions in 2025 and 27 went for either first downs or touchdowns in the regular season.
The third-year pro is equally valuable on in- or out-breaking routes, but his biggest value comes downfield. Despite his 4.5-second 40 speed, he creates enough room in the split second before the ball arrives to generate big gains. His catch rate over expected (CROE) on vertical routes was a ludicrous 33.8 percent. Despite modest numbers and good-not-great athleticism, Boutte has been one of the NFL's most valuable deep threats in 2025.
As good as the Seahawks' defense has been in general, it's been a little better on the ground vs. through the air. We've seen Maye struggle early in downs to set up third-and-long situations. If that happens in Super Bowl 60 we could see a lot of Boutte. His 2025 suggests he'll be covered. His 2025 also suggests he's going to come down with the ball.
Seahawks defense: S Julian Love
It's difficult to find an unsung member of a unit that was not only the league's top defense, but also one in which the *majority* of starters have been named to at least one Pro Bowl (there were four Seahawks on the NFC roster in 2025 alone). Love missed out on those honors in large part due to the hamstring injury that cost him nine games in the middle of the regular season.
So, let's focus there — with a veteran in the midst of potentially his finest season as a pro. Love's work as a roving over-the-top safety has resulted in a 54.5 passer rating. He's played sparingly out of the slot, but when opponents have targeted him there (it's happened often enough to think he's being purposefully singled out, roughly one target in every five snaps) he's got that rating down to 20.8. In all, he's given up only 81 receiving yards as the closest defender across 274 snaps.
That's awesome, but tracking data for safeties is both tricky and imperfect. Let's look at how he affects Seattle's overall performance. The Seahawks started the season slowly, lost Love for eight games in the middle, then brought him before for Week 14 onward. Surprisingly, Seattle's defense was better *without* Love and with Ty Okada in his place.
- Weeks 1-4: 0.039 dropback EPA, 13th in the NFL
- Weeks 5-13: -0.100, third-best
- Weeks 14-playoffs: -0.075, ninth-best
That's more a story of head coach Mike Macdonald's ability to find the right fits for his players than any Love deficiency. He hasn't been credited with a missed tackle since Week 15. He's allowed only three passes to be completed in front of him since returning from injury. His presence pushed Okada to only two defensive snaps in the NFC title game while Love never left the field on defensive downs. This is a player Macdonald trusts against an MVP-caliber QB.
Love has set career bests in yards allowed, average separation and ballhawk rate — a measurement of passes disrupted divided by targets where his 35.3 percent ranks second to only Harrison Smith among defensive backs with at least 15 attempts. He'll be the bracket locking down on whichever Patriots target is deemed most dangerous. Oh, and his 5.6 percent missed tackle rate is second-lowest of his career.
Patriots defense: DTs Cory Durden and Khyiris Tonga
Let's finish with a double-dip. Milton Williams was a driving force for good on the Patriots' defensive line. His ability to generate interior pressure freed up Christian Barmore to wreak havoc. Together they combined for 87 pressures in 29 combined games and cut off escape routes for quarterbacks stepping up in the pocket. That helped imperfect edge rushers like K'Lavon Chaisson and Harold Landry thrive.
That's all very important, but we know those guys. Tonga and Durden are under-the-radar tackles who fill a need in the other phase of the defense — stopping the run. Together they've combined for 44 run stops in 343 tries, a 12.8 percent stuff rate that doesn't factor in the space created for New England's run-stuff leader, linebacker Robert Spillane, behind them.
Kenneth Walker will get the bulk of Seattle's handoffs. He's an absolute monster in space, cracking a top 10 missed tackle rate and top five explosive run rate in 2025. He averaged 4.6 yards per carry in runs up the middle vs. 4.0 when bounced outside.
It will be up to Tonga and Durden to stop that by clogging his running lanes and overpowering double-teams to keep him from juking linebackers and picking up easy yards. They'll play a limited role in bothering Darnold directly — only 26 pressures between them — but can still make the quarterback's life worse with early stops that set up the third-and-long opportunities in which the New England pass rush has thrived.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: The 5 overlooked players who could swing Super Bowl 60