DeMarcus Lawrence: Super Bowl win ‘did not live up to my expectations’

DeMarcus Lawrence weighed the idea of retirement heavily in the offseason after his first year with the Seattle Seahawks ended in a Super Bowl championship.

Ultimately, he decided to come back in 2026 for one last NFL season – because of the drive to win a second Super Bowl. But the reason behind that drive is a surprising one.

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“It did not live up to my expectations on how I would be feeling once I was able to hold that Lombardi Trophy up,” Lawrence told Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob on Wednesday about winning it all with the Hawks in February. “It was not the excitement and the thrill that I was looking forward to. So with that happening also, it was like, well, I mean, if this is it, then shoot, in order to actually feel it, you got to probably do it again.”

The 34-year-old Lawrence earned his fifth career Pro Bowl nod last season, and he had a pretty good idea when he joined the Seahawks after spending the first 11 years of his NFL career with the Dallas Cowboys that his new team had a chance of doing something special. He’s confident the Hawks have a chance to do it again, too, even after a 3-3 start to the season.

“It was something that was deeply on my heart last year coming to Seattle. It was something that I was feeling deeply that we were going to accomplish that dream, and to see everything come to fruition, it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” he said. “And then on top of that, it’s like, OK, now we have an opportunity to come back and do something special – not just win one Super Bowl but win two. So even though that road is going to look a little different, we still got the players and the abilities to go make that happen, so why not go do it?”

Lawrence is sure that this is his last go-round in the league, though, with six kids back home to raise with his wife.

“The tough decision was deciding if I was going to do this year,” he said, “but once I got over that hump, it was pretty set in stone that this will be the last year. Shoot man, I got a household full of babies, so it’s time for me to transition and put all my focus on them.”

Hear the full Wyman and Bob conversation with Seattle Seahawks edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence in the podcast at this link or in the player below. Catch Wyman and Bob live from 2-7 p.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

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