In the same setting and against the same team that one potential Seahawks dynasty began its descent, a new one has a chance to arise Sunday.

From the moment the Seattle-New England Super Bowl matchup was set two weeks ago, the history of the Seahawks and Patriots became impossible to ignore.

Could a win Sunday finally avenge the horrific and stunning turn of events in Glendale, Ariz., on Feb. 1, 2015, when the Legion of Boom began to lose some of its thunder?

The passage of time makes that feel more like a convenient storyline this week than anything else.

A win Sunday won’t do much to erase the anguished look on Richard Sherman’s face that night — a scene shown on repeat the last two weeks — as the finality of that moment began to sink in.

The 2025 Seahawks more rightly view Sunday’s game as the biggest chapter yet in writing what is their own, unique story.

That was then and this is now.

Seahawks safety Julian Love recalls a meeting at the beginning of the season when coach Mike Macdonald made his players an offer he hoped they wouldn’t refuse.

“He said that you can get in on the ground floor of the Seahawks, the new era of the Seattle Seahawks," Love said. “And I bought in. I told him I want to be on the ground floor. I want to be a part of this thing for years to come."

An era that some observers think could have its own dynastic overtones.

By any metric, the Seahawks have one of the younger rosters in the league.

They have just nine players age 29 or older, which at the beginning of the season was fewer than all but three other teams.

Their projected starting lineup Sunday features 12 players acquired in the draft since 2022, or since the month after Russell Wilson was traded to Denver.

It’s a young group sprinkled with some key trade or free-agent acquisitions over the last three years, notably 28-year-old quarterback Sam Darnold, 26-year-old middle linebacker Ernest Jones IV and 27-year old receiver/returner Rashid Shaheed, buffeted by a few grizzled vets such as 31-year-old defensive lineman Leonard Williams, 32-year-old receiver Cooper Kupp and 33-year-old DeMarcus Lawrence.

“We’ve got a really deep, young, talented roster," Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said this week.

If the future is enticing, so is the present and what the Seahawks can pull off Sunday by winning the second Lombardi Trophy in franchise history.

In the eyes of many on the team, that deep, young, talented roster began to come together shortly after Macdonald gave his “ground floor" speech when the Seahawks traveled to Green Bay in late August for a joint practice against the Packers.

The Packers had beaten the Seahawks soundly at Lumen Field in Nov. 2024, 30-13, a game that seemed to show there was still a ways to go in Macdonald’s efforts to build Seattle back to a Super Bowl contender.

But on a practice field a mile or so away from storied Lambeau Field on a hot Aug. 21 day, the Seahawks not only held their own against the Packers — who entered the season behind only the defending champion Eagles with the best odds to win the Super Bowl of any NFC team — but began to trust each other.

Love recalled this week watching how quickly and avidly teammates rushed to defend those who got involved in the handful of scraps that broke out that day.

“Those practices against Green Bay told us who we were," Love said. “To see a few of them fighting, a little bit of the dawg mindset coming out, letting you know that people were ready to ride for each other. That was really the piece that was added to the whole puzzle.

“We left those days feeling like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to be special. We took care of business in the right way — offense, defense, special teams.’ It was a cool, early identifier."

Rookie guard Grey Zabel recalled marveling how hard some of the more experienced players practiced that day.

“To see an NFL team with as many vets who might not need to practice or might not need to push it be some of the hardest-working guys out there," Zabel said. “Those moments are when I knew this team was going to be special."

The Seahawks already had a good base from which to work, going 10-7 in Macdonald’s first season.

Then came the hectic week of March when the Seahawks essentially traded Geno Smith for Darnold at QB and swapped out DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett for Kupp (and eventually Tory Horton and Shaheed) at receiver.

Macdonald has often cited the team getting almost perfect attendance during the voluntary portion of offseason workouts and how players worked during May and June as a moment he knew something might be brewing.

“What I felt was a great deal of enthusiasm and buy-in that wasn’t necessarily earned yet on our part as coaches," Macdonald said. “That was really exciting."

Certainly, the Seahawks have caught some breaks.

The Seahawks were one of the healthiest teams in the NFL this season, losing just 5.76% of their cap space to the injured reserve (or similar) lists this season, the fourth-lowest total in the league.

Darnold’s acclimation into the starting QB role and team leader proved more successful than most around the league figured.

But the sturdiest part of the foundation — one that sees no sign of weakening anytime soon — is the reshaping of the defense that Macdonald began in 2024. That reconstruction effort truly took hold in 2025 as a Seahawks team that was 25th in points allowed in Pete Carroll’s last season in 2023 allowed the fewest in the NFL this season.

In his answer to the last question he received in his final news conference this week, Macdonald stressed the team’s objective was never necessarily stated as getting to the Super Bowl some day but doing what is necessary to get to the Super Bowl each and every day.

“Our goal is to be here and win this game," he said. “But you can’t do that unless you become a championship team. So that was our goal from the get-go. We have to become the team that can win a game like that. [That] was really what our focus was — more of the process rather than thinking like, ‘This is where we’re trying to get.’

“And here we are.

Now that they’ve arrived, they are also hoping to leave with a trophy as proof that they may be able to stay around awhile, as well.

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