SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Julian Love once thought he would never leave the Giants.
Now, he is a Super Bowl champion.
The move from east to west did great things for him.
Love was part of Seattle’s “Dark Side” defense that dominated from start to finish Sunday in the Seahawks’ 29-13 victory over the Patriots in Super Bowl LX.
The Seahawks were never in trouble, but their 19-0 lead was trimmed to 19-7 and the Patriots had the ball again early in the fourth quarter, perhaps on the fringes of a comeback.
They picked up two first downs when Drake Maye looked deep for Kyle Williams.
Love, right where he needed to be, turned a terrible throw into an easy interception.
He then raced 35 yards to help set up Jason Myers’ fifth and final field goal to slam the door on the Patriots once and for all.
“I’d be kidding if I didn’t dream of that in the backyard when I was 8, 9 years old,’’ Love said. “To see that ball in the air and it was right to me, all I thought in my mind was ‘Just catch it.’ ’’
Love spent his first four NFL seasons with the Giants, the team that took him in the fourth round in 2019.
He wanted to stay with the Giants but ended up signing with the Seahawks and in his third year with his new team is now a champion.
It was quite remarkable that the Seahawks had little trouble bludgeoning the Patriots without any real contribution from their top receiver.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba was targeted 10 times by Sam Darnold and came away with only four receptions for 27 yards.
His longest catch went for 16 yards.
“There’s been games where I caught two balls — I don’t know what I had today — and we won,’’ Smith-Njigba said.
This was quite a reversal of fortune for this year’s AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year Smith-Njigba, who finished the regular season with 119 receptions for an NFL-high 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Two weeks ago, Smith-Njigba wrecked the Rams in the NFC Championship game, hauling in 10 passes for 153 yards and one touchdown.
Late in the third quarter, Smith-Njigba was forced off the field and into the medical tent, as he was checked out for a concussion.
He was cleared and able to return to the game.
There has never been a Super Bowl with no penalties in one half of play.
This one came reasonably close.
There were no penalties in the first quarter and the first flag of the night was thrown with 3:09 remaining before halftime — a false start penalty on Patriots RT Morgan Moses.
The 9-0 halftime lead was a bad sign for the Patriots.
Teams are now 0-15 in the Super Bowl when held scoreless into halftime.
The Seahawks points in the first half came on three Jason Myers field goals, making this the fifth Super Bowl played without a touchdown scored in a half.
Darnold is the first starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl for his fifth NFL team.
Darnold previously played for the Jets, Panthers, 49ers and Vikings.
Mike Macdonald, 38, becomes the third-youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl — behind only Sean McVay and Mike Tomlin.
Macdonald’s 17 wins in one season are the most ever for a head coach under 40 years old.
He also becomes the first head coach who makes the calls on defense to win a Super Bowl.
The Seahawks join the Buccaneers (Tom Brady, 2020), Broncos (Peyton Manning, 2015) and Saints (Drew Brees, 2009) as the only teams to win a Super Bowl with a quarterback they did not draft and then acquired in free agency.
Seahawks general manager John Schneider, who brought in Darnold, is the first GM to ever take a franchise to multiple Super Bowls with different head coaches and entirely different rosters.
