You’d think winning a Super Bowl would get you some respect. But for the Seattle Seahawks, it’s been the opposite. They crushed the Patriots 29-13 in February, and within 24 hours the national conversation had already moved on. It was like they’d won a preseason game.
ESPN’s Kevin Clark put it bluntly: the Seahawks belong on the short list of most disrespected Super Bowl champions of his lifetime. He compared them to the Eli Manning Giants teams and the Peyton Manning Broncos — squads that won it all and still somehow got treated like flukes or afterthoughts.
“Normally, I would laugh at a ‘Nobody believes in us, I have a chip on my shoulder’ gimmick from a Super Bowl champion,” Clark said on air. “In this case, it is incredibly valid. The Seahawks are on the short list for most disrespected Super Bowl champions of my lifetime. I think the Eli [Manning]-Giants are on that list twice. I think that the Von Miller, Peyton Manning Broncos are on that list, but it feels like the day after the Super Bowl. We started a new conversation about everybody but the Seahawks.”
The Metrics Say They’re Good. The Hype Says Otherwise.
It doesn’t make a ton of logical sense. Seattle has a young, ascending quarterback in Sam Darnold who finally looked like the guy everyone thought he’d be. The defense under Mike Macdonald was nasty. They won the title with authority. And yet, when people talk about next season’s favorites, the Seahawks are often an afterthought behind teams like the Chiefs, the 49ers, or whoever just made a splashy trade.
But maybe that’s part of why this team works. The chip-on-the-shoulder thing is a tired cliché until it’s real. And Clark argues it’s real here. The Seahawks walked off the field as champions and immediately became the team everyone forgot to mention.
And honestly, it’s not hard to find examples. The NFL draft coverage barely touched on Seattle as a defending champ. The schedule release show spent more time on the Patriots’ rebuild than the Seahawks’ repeat chances. Even the Super Bowl rematch in Week 1 — Sept. 9 against New England — is being framed more as a test for the Patriots than a coronation for the guys who just beat them.
So yeah, the Seahawks have reasons to feel overlooked. Whether that actually fuels them to go back-to-back is the real question. But one thing’s for sure: they’re not going to get caught looking ahead. Everyone else already is.
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