It was on June 11, 1962 that Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers staged one of the most daring and infamous prison breaks in history, breaching the maximum security confines of Alcatraz to disappear into the San Franciscan night.
Their fate remains a mystery, but the tale lives on as a stalwart beacon of Bay Area folklore, the ensuing eeriness of Alcatraz Island neighbouring the opulence of the Golden Gate Bridge as pillars to the stage of Super Bowl 60.
Now bear with us while we botch an attempt to shoehorn Alcatraz analogies into footballing narrative, for a story of fortress defiance meets an NFL finale of defiance when the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks fight for the Lombardi Trophy at Levi's Stadium on Sunday.
It had been an escape built on precision planning, execution and deception. Where Morris and the Anglins crafted papier-mâché model heads with which to fool guards during bed checks, Mike Macdonald's Seahawks defense has wreaked havoc with its own subterfuge by way of simulated pressures and Nick Emmanwori-enthused coverage disguise hoodwinking quarterbacks with their Seattle mirage.
Morris and the Anglins spent six months patiently chipping away at the ventilation ducts in their cells using metal spoons and discarded saw blades, before finally creating a gap wide enough to squeeze through. Sam Darnold has taken a spoon to the toiling tunnel of quarterback life, before finally breaking out to forge his own miraculous feat - the chances of his story's continuance, albeit, significantly better than that of the three presumed-deceased convicts. Morris and the Anglins had veiled the noise of crumbling concrete using the former's accordion during the prison's music hour; Darnold has had to drown out his own fair share of disparaging noise.
Where Morris and the Anglins found, at least momentary, freedom through the narrowest of holes, Drake Maye will be challenged to thrive in his own constricted space in the face of Seattle's pocket-crashing pass rushers. Where the brains of Morris masterminded the escape of a supposedly escape-proof Alcatraz, Maye and Vrabel's genius has hoisted New England from a pit of confinement in which they were expected to spend far longer post-dynasty. And where the odds of Morris and the Anglins surviving the bitter cold Bay water flirted with the impossible, the Patriots and Seahawks prepare to face off in what preseason odds ruled the most unlikely Super Bowl matchup in history.
Tales of defiance. Vrabel, Maye and the Patriots, who defied the cliff-fall threat of life after Tom Brady and Bill Belichick to reach the franchise's 12th Super Bowl, and who defied the relief of the local villagers that rejoiced in belief they had finally slayed the six-ringed monster. Darnold, who defied write-off ridicule and the ghosts of New York to mount one of sport's greatest career resurrections. Seattle's Aden Durde, who defied a transatlantic divide and football's traditional coaching landscape as the Londoner that has helped orchestrate one of the NFL's most frightening defenses.
And on the subject of defiance, Bad Bunny will represent Latino audiences as an open critic of the Trump administration and its immigration policies when he becomes the first Latino and Spanish-speaking artist to headline the Super Bowl half-time show as a solo act. Green Day are also performing at the game. They might sing American Idiot; Donald Trump has confirmed he will not be in attendance. The US President, who says the game is too far away, appears not to be a reggaeton fan.
The Super Bowl is here for round 60. Behold the greatest sporting party on earth, where generations of Lester Hayes using stickem, Mike Ditka cigars and Don Shula invincibility merge with natives to the Patrick Mahomes dictatorship, Philly Special fanatics and 28-3 tormentors.
It feels like only yesterday that team Your Site NFL were inadvertently sat on the table opposite Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola and the McCourty twins in a New Orleans restaurant ahead of Super Bowl 59 last February, wondering what stories the Patriots dynasty men might be recalling of their illustrious careers.
In the same week our esteemed producer found himself sat beside Joe Burrow at a coffee shop. In the same week San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle and singer Jelly Roll entered the local bar in which colleagues and I sat after a day working at Radio Row. And in the same week I interviewed Malcolm Butler about his iconic goalline interception at Super Bowl 49 - a year on, that interview is even more relevant ahead of a Patriots-Seahawks rematch 11 years after New England's dramatic victory. Come Monday morning post-Super Bowl, I was queuing for beignets behind Kansas City Chiefs defensive end George Karlaftis at Cafe Du Monde.
Super Bowl week has that effect, where sport's A-listers flock for the PR Hunger Games, where the world's media descend for the journalism Olympics, where coaches attempt to preserve something remotely close to their usual routine in the most unusual of weeks, where fans mourn the season's pending curtain-close as football-less Sundays lose all meaning.
The 2025 season travelled far and wide, from Sao Paulo to the NFL's historic debut at Dublin's Croke Park, from Tottenham to Wembley, from Berlin's Olympic Stadium to Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu. It saw the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty tumble as they missed out on the playoffs for the first time since 2014 after reaching five of the last six Super Bowls and seven straight AFC Championship Games. It saw Philip Rivers come out of retirement aged 44, it saw Rico Dowdle two-pump like Key & Peele and Irish kicker Charlie Smyth become the New Orleans Saints starter, it saw Cam Little break the all-time field goal record from 68 yards, it saw Myles Garrett break the all-time single-season sack record with 23, and it saw Aaron Glenn's sideline high-stepping edited to the sounds of Earth, Wind & Fire - a sole flashpoint to the latest edition of Jets misery.
Josh Allen's agonising wait for a Super Bowl appearance continued as the Buffalo Bills fired head coach Sean McDermott after squandering a Kansas City-less playoff opportunity, while Lamar Jackson and Burrow joined Mahomes in proverbial Cancun as shock postseason absentees. Daniel Jones had been building his own Darnold story as the Indianapolis Colts started 8-2 only to capitulate down the stretch following an injury to the New York Giants cast-away, while the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles hobbled through an ugly season on offense.
Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams catapulted the Chicago Bears back into relevance and contention with their fourth quarter wizardry, Liam Coen inspired the best football of Trevor Lawrence's career in Jacksonville and Vance Joseph's defense led the NFL with 68 sacks as Sean Payton and Bo Nix's Denver Broncos clinched the AFC's No 1 seed.
The NFL welcomed the most wide-open season in recent memory, by the end of which there were 10 head coaching vacancies available after Mike Tomlin's departure in Pittsburgh and John Harbaugh's firing in Baltimore.
But with a wide-open season came familiarity, déjà vu, if you will. While the Chiefs were dethroned, the Patriots' evil empire returned just five years removed from Brady's exit as Maye played his way into surprise MVP contention alongside Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford in just his second season since being taken with the third overall pick out of North Carolina. It came as part of a blossoming union with Josh McDaniels, in his third stint as Patriots offensive coordinator and about to coach at his NINTH Super Bowl.
The Seahawks' Jaxon Smith-Njigba officially announced himself among the league's premier wide receivers as he led the NFL with 1,793 yards through the air, Klint Kubiak's prized weapon driving a Darnold resurgence that would seemingly prove his revival in Minnesota was no fluke. Leonard Williams meanwhile accompanies his quarterback in the unofficial MetLife Survivors Support Group, preparing to play in a Super Bowl having spent eight-and-a-half seasons in New York, split between the Jets and Giants. Ouch.
It beckons as Mike vs Mike for the chance to claim football's top prize, Seattle's Macdonald inspiring the No 1-ranked scoring defense in the league and New England's Vrabel following with the fourth-ranked unit in points allowed amid his first year in charge. Their teams are fiercely-stingy, stubborn and expertly-coached, Macdonald living up to the billing as one of football's most coveted geeks and Vrabel proving the quintessential fit for Foxboro, where he won three rings as a player.
Christian Gonzalez and Devon Witherspoon marshal their opposing secondaries as the superstar cornerbacks of the 2023 NFL Draft, glide-and-deny meeting seek-and-destroy. Cooper Kupp and Stefon Diggs enter as the veteran cogs that both sought to prove they can still contribute at the highest level after being shipped off by the Rams and Bills, respectively. And Patriots free agency signing Milton Williams is back for a second successive Super Bowl outing after the defensive tackle sacked Mahomes twice, including a strip sack and recovery in the fourth quarter, as the Eagles cruised to Super Bowl LIX glory last February.
Kupp notably featured as part of a defining 2025 haul in Seattle, which saw him arrive alongside Darnold, veteran defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence, all-action nickel Emmanwori, guard Grey Zabel and Rashid Shaheed, who would become one of the most impactful mid-season additions the NFL has witnessed in recent years.
The stage is set for another seismic Shaheed return, or another spine-tingling Brenden Schooler special teams hit. The stage is set for Sean Stellato, the agent of third-string Patriots quarterback Tommy DeVito, to light up Radio Row with his fedora and funky suits. The stage is set for a game-breaking TreVeyon Henderson run, a third-and-long drive-sustaining AJ Barner grab, an Ernest Jones interception, a K'Lavon Chaisson forced fumble. The stage is set for a hero to emerge.
Convention, logic, discourse suggests Darnold shouldn't be here. It suggests it is all too soon for Maye. It suggests the Patriots should still be buried in purgatory. It suggests the Seahawks should not have marched to the No 1 seed as the most complete team in football.
The season has strayed as far from predictable, as conventional as might have been possible.
Morris and the Anglins are said to have sewed together between 50 and 60 rubber raincoats to create an inflatable raft in view of floating to freedom across the frigid Bay water. It is time for football's sink or swim Super Bowl showdown.
Watch the New England Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl 60 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California on Sunday February 8, with coverage under way at 10pm live on Sky Spots NFL ahead of kick-off at approximately 11.30pm.
