Seahawks revel in Super Bowl glory at ‘Lumen South,' leaving 49ers all the smoke

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The visiting locker room at Levi’s Stadium has never looked, sounded, or smelled quite like this. Cigar smoke curled toward the ceiling, champagne fizzed from shattered bottles, and a Bluetooth speaker thumped as Seattle Seahawks players danced in a circle around the silver Lombardi Trophy. Moments earlier they had walked off the same field where their season began and ended against the 49ers, only this time they left with a 29-13 Super Bowl triumph over the New England Patriots and the right to turn their bitter rival’s home into what safety Julian Love instantly christened “Lumen South.”

The nickname is destined to stick. Seattle’s defense, which had already suffocated San Francisco twice in January, smothered New England for three quarters, allowing only 78 total yards and no points. Drake Maye’s fourth-quarter touchdown and 253 late yards came long after the outcome was decided. Love’s interception of Maye punctuated the night and set off another round of cigar-lighting euphoria.

Kenneth Walker III, the second-year running back who carved out 112 yards and the game’s lone offensive touchdown, received the Pete Rozelle Trophy as Super Bowl MVP, yet even he admitted the halftime show stole the spotlight. Bad Bunny transformed the gridiron into a neon Caribbean playground, delivering what many viewers will remember longer than the game’s record five field goals and 15 punts.

For the 49ers, the celebration happening behind what is normally their locked door cuts deep. Five of the past eight NFC champions have emerged from the NFC West. The Rams lost one Super Bowl before winning the next. Seattle, in the first year under head coach Mike Macdonald, has now climbed the mountain. San Francisco, despite two recent appearances, remains without a Lombardi since the 1994 season.

General manager John Schneider, architect of the league’s youngest roster, acknowledged the twist of fate. “Oh yeah, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t” surreal, he said, watching cigars burn in a room usually reserved for the 49ers’ postseason plans. “These guys want to play for each other, they care about each other. They were super confident. They’re just a together team.”

Second-year tight end A.J. Barner already hears the clock ticking toward a defense of the title. “Everyone wants what we got,” he said. Veteran tight end Eric Saubert, who spent 2024 with the 49ers, offered a warning to the rest of the conference: “We hope we can run it back.”

The Seahawks’ imprint on Levi’s Stadium is now indelible. In 2014, the defending-champion Seahawks humiliated San Francisco on Thanksgiving, then ate turkey at midfield. A decade later, the scene repeated with far higher stakes. When the 49ers reconvene in April for offseason workouts, the lingering scent of championship cigars will serve as a pungent reminder of which division foe owns the league’s ultimate prize.

Seattle’s defense, which held the 49ers without a touchdown in two critical January meetings, again set the standard. Asked on NBC’s pregame show about the unit, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan quipped, “I haven’t scored a touchdown on these guys the last two times we played them, so I don’t know how good that is.”

Linebacker Ernest Jones IV shrugged at the aesthetic critiques of a low-scoring Super Bowl. “Great defensive football is art,” he insisted, echoing former Seahawk Richard Sherman, who tweeted that coaches around the league will study this tape for years.

Whether the game enters the pantheon of classic Super Bowls is debatable. What cannot be debated is the location of the after-party: deep in the heart of enemy territory, amid the haze of victory cigars, with the Lombardi Trophy gleaming under the fluorescent lights of the 49ers’ own locker room. Seattle left Levi’s with more than a championship. The Seahawks left a message, wafting through the air, impossible to ignore.