Super Bowl XLIX of the Seahawks. This was only the fourth time this has occurred. The other three times were in Super Bowl III (Weeb Ewbank's New York Jets vs. Ewbank's former team, Don Shula's Baltimore Colts), Super Bowl XXXIII (Dan Reeves's Atlanta Falcons vs. Mike Shanahan's Denver Broncos), and Super Bowl XXXVII (Jon Gruden's Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Gruden's former team, Bill Callahan's Oakland Raiders). The only previous time that the old coach's former team had won was in Super Bowl XXXIII. The Patriots had also appeared in the only other Super Bowl to be held at University of Phoenix Stadium to
Super Bowl XLII game as 12-point favorites after becoming the first team to complete a perfect regular season since the 1972 Miami Dolphins, and the only one since the league expanded to a 16-game regular season schedule in 1978. The Giants, who finished the regular season with a 10–6 record, were seeking to become the first NFC wild card team to win a Super Bowl, and were also looking for their third Super Bowl victory and first since they won Super Bowl XXV seventeen years earlier. This Super Bowl was also a rematch of the final game of the regular season, in which