“Finally, it’s here.”
It’s what every football fan is thinking every year after the long, two-week stretch between the NFL’s conference championship games and the Super Bowl. It was also the first thought to cross Luke Willson’s mind the first time he set foot on the field for Super Bowl XLVIII on Feb. 2, 2014.
The LaSalle, Ont., native was a first-year tight end with the Seattle Seahawks at the time, about to do as a rookie what many of his peers would never have the chance to do.
Armed with a season’s worth of preparation, a few nerves and all the Pete Carroll pep talks, his second thought was even better:
“Let’s go out here and do what we should do.”
They did, of course, do just that, dominating the Denver Broncos 43-8 thanks to a young Russell Wilson and the Legion of Boom striking early and often to be crowned champions of the 2013 season.
A year later, Willson and the Seahawks were back on the game’s biggest stage — though, as we all know, that time didn’t quite go as planned.
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Now the former Seahawk, who spent the 2018 season with the Detroit Lions and will await his fate in free agency this upcoming off-season, is back at the Super Bowl, though he won’t be suiting up to play. Willson has seen all sides of the NFL’s marquee game, from winning and losing on the field to being part of the media frenzy off it.
We caught up with Willson, who is in Atlanta all week leading up to the big game, to talk about what it felt like to win on the biggest stage – and lose in the worst way.
Sportsnet: Thinking back to your first Super Bowl, what was your mindset like going into that whole week?
Luke Willson: I was a rookie that year, so obviously it was normal to have a few nerves.
But [Seahawks head coach] Pete Carroll did a great job with the team, making it as normal as he could. So with the week [between the championship game and the Super Bowl], he’d say, “Listen, once we get to New York, there’s going to be a ton of distractions, a media circus. We’re going to prepare like we’re playing a game this Sunday.” So we had a regular week of practice, our entire playbook, studied, the whole ordeal. And then instead of playing Sunday, we flew to New York. Once we landed, everything at that point was kind of bonus, in a sense.
Pete was just a really big believer in and really preached, “Treat this like any other game. Don’t make it something it’s not. There’s a reason we got this far.” He was so adamant about that. Pete does such a great job of having guys and getting guys to believe in him, that I was really not that caught up in the Super Bowl moment.
The media storm over there is really something. What was that like, going through that as a player?
The first year was a little odd because I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I guess I thought it would be more football related – I’m speaking more of the Opening Night as we call it now. The second year, I was kind of a little more relaxed because I knew that a lot of it is just such a joke. That was the Deflategate year, so we had to deal with questions about that.
It’s kind of one of those things where you just want to not have your name in any headlines for any quotes that you said that day. There’s a lot of people here from all over the world that are just kind of looking for a quick tidbit or to get their article published, so you’ve got to be careful with it. But again after the first year, I was pretty relaxed about the whole ordeal.
It seems to get weirder and weirder every year.
It’s funny you say that, because it really did. It was costumes, it was mayhem. I thought this year, I don’t know if they’re kind of cracking down, but this year, in my opinion, I didn’t see anything in terms of outlandish costumes. It was a little more serious.
Going back to your first Super Bowl, can you recall what it felt like when you first walked into the stadium in New York before the game?
Yeah, it was exciting. Obviously it’s easy for me to say this now, but after the week we had back in Seattle and then, like I said, the ‘bonus time’ we had in New York and just the general vibe coming off the crazy NFC championship game with The Tip against San Fran and watching film, I was very excited and I really thought that we were going to dominate Denver.
So it was kind of more of a, “Finally, it’s here. Let’s go out here and do what we should do.”
You were right, of course – you did dominate Denver. Your Super Bowl victory against the Broncos was a pretty convincing one. Can you pinpoint when, exactly it was that you thought, “Hey, I think we’re gonna win this thing?”
When we came out for the second half [up 22-0] I thought we were in good shape, obviously. But when Percy Harvin returned the opening kick-off of the half, I kind of looked around and that was the moment that I was like, “Dude, we’re going to win the Super Bowl.”
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OnThisDay years ago, Percy Harvin took the kickoff yards to the house And the @Seahawks won Super Bowl 48 https://t.co/AEjdAZ6Eaz
I guess the coolest moment for me was, at the end of the game, I don’t know if it’s still like this but you’re allowed two people on the field and I had my mom and dad on the field. Confetti’s coming down, the Lombardi Trophy’s being presented. To share that moment with my mom and dad was something that I’ll forever cherish.
So then, the following year, you’re back in the Super Bowl again. Did your mindset going into the game change at all, in terms of preparations and nerves?
I was playing a lot more the second year, so there were a little bit more nerves for me just personally but that was just kind of a week-to-week thing.
But that being said, Pete [Carroll] just does a great job of [coaching] every game the same. He teaches that every year, there’s no such thing as big games. Like, it’s the NFL – we have 16 games, all of them are really crucial.
You know what it’s like to go up against the Patriots dynasty. How do you prepare to face the duo of Brady and Belichick?
You know, I think the worst thing the Rams could do is really focus a lot of their energy on that question. They’re here for a reason. Obviously stopping Tom Brady is a huge ordeal … but the Rams are a tremendous team, and if they try and really adjust what they do to a crazy amount, I think it’ll hurt them. There’s a reason they’re the No. 2 seed, won 13 games this year. They’ve got a lot of great players so I think that the key for them is to go out and do what they’ve done to get them here so far.
Obviously probably not a memory you’d like to reflect on, but could you tell me about what it felt like to lose that game, especially so suddenly?
Yeah. So the last play of the Super Bowl there, I was on the other side of the field from where it happened, so it was kind of an odd experience. When it happened, I didn’t see it but I heard everybody cheering … but it wasn’t voices that are familiar to me.
It was devastating, to say the least. It was definitely not a great moment of my life.
Sorry to bring it up.
All good, all good.
Got a prediction for this Sunday?
Personally, I’m kind of hoping that there’s a power outage* and the game isn’t even played because I don’t like either team.
[*Editor’s Note: Uh, somebody should probably keep an eye on Luke Willson at the stadium.]