Seahawks’ Love explains how Super Bowl champs continue to fuel themselves

In hindsight, Julian Love has a new appreciation for the Seattle Seahawks’ ugly loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last October.

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The defense, down several starters, allowed 38 points from a Bucs team that ended up missing the playoffs. The dam didn’t break late; Baker Mayfield and Tampa Bay’s offense scored at will throughout the shootout. Ultimately, it didn’t cost the Seahawks. They lost only once more for the rest of the season and went on to beat the Patriots to nab their second Super Bowl title.

But the loss tested the Seahawks’ belief in their approach — and by sticking with it and winning again and again, they realized they could believe in their style of football.

“Everyone was kind of licking their wounds after that game and looking at each other like ‘are we who we say we are?'” Love said Wednesday during an interview on Bump and Stacy.

“And then whatever that next game was we blew them out the water, and next game after that we reloaded and blew them out the water. And that stretch was like OK, we know what works. It wasn’t what we did in the Bucs game, it was how we did it. So playing our style, it got ingrained into who we are on a day-to-day after that game.”

That team grew closer and got better week-by-week. Today, they must work through a pool of brand-new challenges (including a few departing starters and a brand new offensive coordinator) to try to become just the second team in the last 20 years to win back-to-back championships.

But first, Love took a quick look back.

Messaging about Darnold resonated with locker room

Seahawks players heard the criticism of their team after making a series of big offseason trades, including sending Geno Smith to Vegas. They saw the projections, including some putting them as low as fourth place in the NFC West. And even if critics weren’t casting nearly as much doubt on a defense that had steadily improved in 2024, its players felt defensive of their own team — including new quarterback Sam Darnold. This was a group that grew close, and long before Ernest Jones offered a blunt, expletive-laden retort toward Darnold’s critics, that messaging was already prevalent inside Seattle’s locker room.

“Ernest’s message was internal the entire year,” Love said. “We were really competitive in camp, but as soon as the season started, it was like bro, forget — this isn’t Jets Sam Darnold. This isn’t 2017. He’s proven himself these past few years that he’s, one, a likeable person. We all enjoy being around him. He’s very politically correct in front of the camera, but when we’re all in the locker room talking crap, he’s in the mix gassing people up. We’re close. So once last season started, it was like you’re either with us or you’re not. I’m tired of the, ‘Can Sam Darnold do (whatever)?’ It just got so old. And I think that was just our mindset for all of it. We’re a team. We’re the best team in football.” 

Despite winning a Super Bowl, that disrespect lingers

Love was able to laugh about this one, but there’s still a very real chip on the shoulders of players here.

Oddsmakers favor the Los Angeles Rams to win both the NFC West and the Super Bowl, despite Seattle’s title run last season.

“It’s that Jordan mindset of like, ‘I took that personally,'” Love joked, referencing Michael Jordan’s infamous line from The Last Dance. “Obviously on defense we’re crazy, we have that killer mindset. But it’s the whole team. I know Mike (Macdonald) embodies it. He gets mad too when people talk about us that way when we just climbed and reached the pinnacle.”

Players don’t have to seek it out. Love mentioned absentmindedly tuning into last month’s NFL Draft while he was feeding his infant son. The Rams had just selected quarterback Ty Simpson at No. 13 overall.

“One of the commentators said, ‘Yeah, it’s a great situation for him, he’s going to arguably the best team last year.’ And I looked to my wife like, what did he just say? What do you mean arguable? That’s just the crazy mindset about how people write us off so quick. There’s no arguable in sports. It’s either you won it all or you didn’t. And we won it all. So that fuels us, we’re competitors.”

Seattle’s top defense is ever-evolving

The Seahawks defense was No. 1 by DVOA wire-to-wire and enters 2026 as the clear strength of Seattle’s team. It lost one starter from its Super Bowl-winning team (safety Coby Bryant) but will also feel the loss of corner Riq Woolen and edge Boye Mafe. The team replenished their defensive back room in the draft (Love said rookie safety Bud Clark “will be special”) and will also turn to the ever-evolving scheme of one of the best defensive minds in football in Macdonald.

Love described his head coach as a “sicko” for football and said Macdonald’s approach leans heavily into creativity with personnel, which makes replicating it difficult.

“He’s not going up there thinking about Xs on paper,” Love said. “He’s thinking about who do we have in our room and how can I maximize this player. That’s the secret power. The next team over can’t do the same thing because they don’t have the same people. And that’s what we’re bringing to the table and we’re always evolving that.”

Hear more from Love’s interview with Bump and Stacy, including why Devon Witherspoon is the prototypical Seahawk, here.

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