A Grip on Sports: The Seahawks may be the favorites on the field Sunday but the Patriots are the favorite sons of the I-95 corridor
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Thank goodness I drink my coffee black. Not sure I could get through a morning of reading story after story about the Super Bowl without it. Even with the Seahawks as one of the participants. A circumstance seemingly lost on most of the nation’s media.
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• If it weren’t for the story that seems eternal – let’s call it The Sam Darnold Saga – it would seem as if the New England Patriots were in for an intrasquad scrimmage on Sunday. The 2025 team versus all of those previous Tom Brady ones.
Or something of that sort.
The Hawks? Don’t they play out West somewhere? In that state where it always rains?
One simple fact about the NFL. If it’s not an L.A. team, it’s not on the national radar. Though an exception can be made for the Bay Area. Has to be, at least this year. The Super Bowl is in town. Nearby anyway. Santa Clara is part of the Bay Area, right?
Maybe geographically. But I’m pretty sure there is no way San Francisco would allow an electrical substation near any football field, especially one so close to the beloved 49ers’ practice facility.
If only the once-mighty franchise had never left Candlestick Park. Or Kezar Stadium for that matter. The exodus to Santa Clara certainly didn’t help the team win another Super Bowl. Host, yes. But win? Not since 1995, the last of the franchise’s five titles. Since then this year’s darling, the Pats, have won six of them. And a seventh seems in the offing. If you live somewhere near the I-95 corridor.
Or as the folks in that swath of the East Coast like to call it, the corridor of power.
OK. No one calls it that. At least not in public. But with 40% of the nation’s population served by the pockmarked interstate, including most Pats fans in the Boston area, it probably should be.
Over here on the other side of the country, out of the corridors of power?
Seattle seems poised to be just another name on the list of victims for New England’s newest dynasty.
No more Bill Whatshisname. Mike Vrabel is in charge. He’s a younger, hipper, more stable version. Same with the quarterback. Drake Maye is the reincarnation of Brady, isn’t he? With better legs? And fewer foibles?
More fumbles though. And that is what may matter the most come Sunday.
Even ESPN’s glorious talking heads in Bristol – a company town less than 50 miles from I-95 – will admit the Hawks’ defense is special. Though the reason given is simple.
Head coach and defensive maven Mike Macdonald made his bones in Baltimore. And I-95 cuts right through the heart of that city. See, everything is connected by the road. Or the Acela.
Then there is Darnold, who was the poster boy of everything that is wrong with the New York Jets. His recent success just highlights it. Of course, he’s bound to revert to seeing ghosts again. The first time he saw them – in 2019 – came against the Pats after all. The video is still making the rounds.
Heck, the Pats will even be wearing white on Sunday. Like Casper. Though not as friendly.
And the Lombardi Trophy? It will be paraded through the streets of Boston soon. Maybe it will even take a short spin on I-95.
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WSU: Around the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, John Canzano checked in with some Mountain West sources for this column. The conference members left behind when five schools left for the Pac-12 are determined to fight for future relevance. … The Oregon men aren’t relevant right now. The Ducks lost for the eighth consecutive time, this one to Iowa in Eugene. … Colorado snapped its losing streak, topping reeling TCU at home. … The Big 12 road is tough as Utah is about to find out. … Not yet for top-ranked Arizona, which is trying not to focus on its perfect record. A perfect game? That’s the goal. … San Diego State’s loss at Utah State tightened up the MWC race. … The California women were hanging with seventh-ranked Louisville. Until the third quarter. … No one hangs with second-ranked UCLA right now. Not even No. 8 Iowa on Sunday in Pauley. … USC double-upped on the weekend, blowing past Rutgers. … Washington’s five-game winning streak ended against Illinois. … Colorado swept its trip to Kansas. … Arizona State stayed with Kansas State for a while. … Same with Arizona and Oklahoma State. No, not really. OSU won 88-69. … Utah lost to BYU. … Stanford was torched by Notre Dame’s Hannah Hildago.
• In football news, as we like to say, recruiting never stops. Not for Oregon. … What will USC’s defense look like next season?
Gonzaga: Emmanuel Innocenti almost transferred to Saint Mary’s. Instead, he picked Spokane and the Zags. Theo Lawson shares that tidbit in his look back on Innocenti’s contributions to the sixth-ranked Bulldogs’73-65 win Saturday night over the Gaels. … Chet Holmgren is an NBA All-Star. He’s the third Zags so honored, after John Stockton and Domantas Sabonis. Theo has more in this story. … Just thought I would pass along the A.P. story from Saturday. … Could the Zags be ranked fifth today?
EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, Sacramento State won more than just a men’s basketball game at home Saturday night. They also won by announcing a multi-million-dollar partnership with a nearby casino. … Cal Poly has contributed a key player to New England’s Super Bowl run.
Indians: Charlie Condon, who spent time in Spokane not that long ago, is still considered the Rockies’ second-best minor league prospect.
Chiefs: Kailer Yamamoto is starting to feel at home in Utah.
Seahawks: Dave Boling looks into his crystal ball today and sees a bright future for the Hawks. The main reason? Lots of young talent. … The Raiders didn’t learn the lesson. Which one is that? Coaches that move between their franchise and Seattle don’t have a lot of luck. Tom Flores was a washout with the Hawks. Pete Carroll went the other way and was even worse. Now Las Vegas seems set to hire Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak as its next head coach. … Not surprisingly, I found a Darnold story. And once again more than one. Including one I linked yesterday that’s on the S-R site today. … Let the flags fly. … The magic was lost in the Super Bowl loss. It’s back now, 11 years later. … College roommates can become pro teammates. It happens. … The Hawks are in Santa Clara after their short flight. Did they bring more talent with them than their opponent? They did bring one young star.
Mariners: If you were still holding out hope the good vibes would continue at third base one more season, sorry. Eugenio Suarez is headed back to Cincinnati. … I have a bobblehead in my office from the 10th anniversary of the 2001 team. It shows Mike Cameron and Mark McLemore holding an American flag. Soon, a much larger non-bobblehead statue of the same scene will be outside T-Mobile. I would let them just put mine in place but one of the arms is broken. I’ll have to fix it before September.
Sounders: The MLS is the top league in America. But is still mainly a feeder league for the world’s best. That point is driven home once more today. Obed Vargas, a key, young piece of the Sounders, will not be around for next season. Heck, he may be on his way to Europe by tonight.
Golf: Joel Dahmen started Sunday alone in second place. He didn’t play his best at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego. Not his worst either. He finished seventh. And pocketed more money than I ever made in a year. More like five years, actually. Justin Rose ran away with the tournament title.
Olympics: The games are beginning soon. Some of the events will be in one of the prettier parts of Italy. A part that hasn’t actually been part of the country for all that long. Then again, Italy as the country it is today has not been around all that long.
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• You won’t be seeing me in this space tomorrow. I’ll be busy. Sleeping. Sort of. We’ll be back Wednesday morning. Bet I’ll be able to find a new Darnold story to pass along. Until then …