Nick Emmanwori had his victory cigar.
He was wearing his new Super Bowl 60 champions-branded T-shirt, cap and ski goggles. The last new gift was to protect his eyes from the sweet sting of champagne spraying through the bumpin’ locker room.
Emmanwori had posed with his teammates with the Vince Lombardi Trophy in the middle of the room.
He’d told and re-told the story of the Seahawks’ season. Of Super Bowl 60 on Sunday. Of he and his defense annihilating quarterback Drake Maye and the New England Patriots in a dominant, 29-13 victory Sunday to win Seattle’s second NFL championship in the franchise’s 50-year history.
The do-it-all rookie was ecstatic. He was euphoric. The most integral member of coach Mike Macdonald’s complex defensive schemes was living the greatest moment of his life, the day after his 22nd birthday.
Yet he was sad.
“The journey and the brotherhood as the year’s gone on, it feels almost surreal,” Emmanwori said amid the music and roars that had yet to fade 90 minutes after the Super Bowl ended Sunday night.
“Like, yeah, we won the Super Bowl. But I’m a little bittersweet,” Emmanwori said. “This team was SO special. This is the type of team you think about years from now. This is the type of team that was really, truly a brotherhood. “Not a lot of football teams come around like this, regardless of whatever level you are on or how much people are connected.”
Emmanwori shook his head. Standing at his locker, still in his Seahawks uniform under the new champions swag, he looked almost crestfallen.
“It’s been a helluva journey,” he said. “And it’s like, almost, sad that we don’t have practice next week.”
Emmanwori then bobbed his head forward. It was an expression of eagerly anticipating something that wasn’t going to happen. Mike Macdonald’s “12 As One”
These Seahawks personified their coach’s “12 As One” mantra. They turned it into a bond the players and coaches say was their secret sauce to Seattle winning it all.
But now those bonds are about to go dormant. The players — except for Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker and quarterback Sam Darnold being in Disneyland, plus Macdonald being on the set of Jimmy Kimmel Live in Los Angeles — arrived back from the Bay Area to Seattle Monday afternoon. They will clean out their lockers at the team facility in Renton Tuesday.
They announced they will have a Super Bowl victory parade from Lumen Field along 4th Avenue through downtown Seattle Wednesday morning.
Then these champion Seahawks will scatter to their home bases for the offseason. Yes, after 17 wins in 20 games plus practices that began with 100% participation in voluntary workouts nine months ago, the offseason begins.
It’s one thing for Emmanwori, finishing his first NFL season, to be sad the Seahawks’ daily bonding is coming to an end.
It’s another for Ernest Jones to feel the same way.
Jones just won the second Super Bowl of his five-year NFL career. This is his third team.
It’s by far the closest one he’s ever been on.
At his locker a couple down from Emmanwori’s, Jones used the same words his rookie teammate did.
“Honestly, it’s so surreal, man,” Jones said. “It hasn’t hit me yet. But I’m just looking at all the guys celebrating, and it means everything.
“Honestly, this week’s been super sad. Because unfortunately, it has to end. Unfortunately, I don’t get a chance to be around these guys next week. There’s no more games. And it’s not going to be the same group.
“It sucks, honestly.”
Then Jones smiled.
“But we won the Super Bowl,” he said, “so it goes right.”
Defensive tackle Byron Murphy had two of Seattle’s six sacks of Maye in the Super Bowl. After it, staring at the Lombardi Trophy about 10 feet in front of him at his locker, Murphy said he felt this bond during voluntary offseason workouts last spring, when this team had 100% player participation, when they all didn’t have to be there.
Murphy felt the brotherhood strengthen in the first game of this season. It was a loss, at home to San Francisco, 17-13, a game the Seahawks knew they should have won.
It seems like centuries ago, given the scene inside those rival 49ers’ locker room in Santa Clara Sunday night following Seattle’s Super Bowl victory. But Murphy vividly remembers what he told Pro Bowl defensive lineman Leonard Williams that day Sept. 7 after the week-one loss to San Francisco.
“Man, this is a special group right here,” Murphy told Williams that Sunday, five months before they won the Super Bowl.
“We are just a committed group. Everybody being on the same page, playing as one.”
It goes beyond football.
Outside linebacker Derick Hall had two sacks in 19 games before Super Bowl 60. He joined Murphy with two sacks of Maye Sunday night. Hall was a candidate to be the championship game’s MVP deep into the fourth quarter.
Hall looked around the locker room at Levi’s Stadium late Sunday night, through the cigar smoke and the beer, champagne and bottles of Don Julio 1942 tequila as these tightly bonded Seahawks continued celebrating doing what only one other team in the franchise’s existence has done.
“I mean, guys, we love each other,” Hall said. “We love ball. We love what we do. We do things the right way. We go out and hunt for one another.
“I think when you get a group of guys like that, we’ve shown what can be done.”
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