Super Bowl LX decided today: the NFL’s cruelest round delivers its final verdict

The Championship round is surely the cruelest stage of the NFL playoffs. Winners taste glory knowing that, in two weeks, they will be playing in the Super Bowl – the game that commands the attention of hundreds of millions of people worldwide – while losers fall just short of the biggest stage and slip into oblivion almost instantly. That is why what is at stake this Sunday is enormous, with the two conference finals deciding the participants in the Super Bowl on February 8.

Seattle Seahawks or Los Angeles Rams will be one of them; the other will emerge from the clash between the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots. None of them wants to be forgotten, that much is certain.

This season has been one of change across the league, underlined by the fact that it is the first time since 2011 that all four conference finalists are different from the previous year. The Chiefs and the Commanders failed to reach the playoffs, the Eagles – defending champions – were eliminated at the first hurdle, and the Bills bowed out last weekend. This new NFL cycle has arrived with postseason drama to spare, with 15 lead changes in fourth quarters, a league record, and six games decided by four points or fewer, another all-time high. It would be no surprise if those numbers increase after Sunday, when both matchups look finely balanced.

Hostilities begin with the Denver Broncos welcoming the New England Patriots (3:00 p.m. ET, DAZN) in a game defined by an unexpected name. Jarrett Stidham has suddenly found himself in the spotlight after Bo Nix’s injury on the penultimate play of the Divisional round ruled him out for the rest of the playoffs. Stidham will therefore start at quarterback for Denver, despite having been a starter in just four games across his six NFL seasons since being drafted – by the Patriots, no less. In fact, no quarterback in history has started a Championship game with fewer than five career starts. Stidham’s performance is a major unknown, compounding doubts about a Denver offense that can stall at times and now faces New England’s formidable defense, fresh from shutting down the Texans.

For either team, victory would mean a return to the Super Bowl for the first time since saying goodbye to their legendary quarterbacks. The Broncos have not reached the final since 2016, when they won the title in Peyton Manning’s farewell season. The Patriots last appeared in 2019, when Tom Brady delivered the franchise’s fifth Lombardi Trophy – later adding another with the Buccaneers. Optimism runs high in New England because, comparisons aside, they appear to have found a worthy successor in Drake Maye, one of the leading MVP candidates this season and on the brink of his first Super Bowl appearance. The AFC final promises a brutal, trench-level battle, with two defenses that overpower everything in their path. Protecting the ball will be a fundamental requirement for survival.

The winner of that game can then sit back and watch to see who awaits them in the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, to be played at Levi’s Stadium. Fate has its quirks: one of the 49ers’ two great rivals will occupy their home in two weeks’ time, as the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams meet in the NFC final (6:30 p.m. ET, DAZN). These teams know each other well, sharing a division and having faced off twice this season, with the home side winning both times. The Rams prevailed 21–19 in Week 11, while the Seahawks won 38–37 in overtime in Week 16 after overturning a 16-point fourth-quarter deficit. Two formidable forces collide in Seattle, with Los Angeles boasting the league’s highest-scoring offense (30.5 points per game) against a defense that allows the fewest (17.2). Experience favors the Rams, champions in 2022 with a largely intact core led by quarterback Matthew Stafford – another MVP contender – and head coach Sean McVay. The Super Bowl is just around the corner, and only two teams will remain standing.

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