This certainly wasn’t the Super Bowl 2026 experience Patriots superfan Dave Portnoy was hoping for.
As Seattle’s defense demolished New England en route to a dominant 29-13 victory, the Barstool Sports founder looked crestfallen in a series of videos shared on X as he watched the game from a suite at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
Down 19-7 in the fourth quarter after a Drake Maye-to-Mack Hollins touchdown finally got the Patriots on the board, an interception from the second-year quarterback drained the momentum, with a somber Portnoy looking on.
Warning: Explicit language
“He could have run for 30 yards,” Portnoy said as Seattle safety Julian Love returned the ball for 35 yards.
Maye was intercepted on New England’s next series, with Seahawks linebacker Uchenna Nwosu taking it to the house for a 45-yard touchdown return.
Portnoy, 48, then posted a separate video recapping the game as Seattle put it away.
“I honestly thought they were going to make a run there, I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, we’re going to do it again’ after we got the ball back and the touchdown. We’re driving, Drake throws a horrible interception. We had no business to win the game. Defense, unbelievable, played their f–king nuts and their d–k off. Offense, horrible, Drake Maye has to be hurt, right?” Portnoy said.
Portnoy, who urged his 3.8 million followers to read the “Man in the Arena” passage from former President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Citizenship in a Republic” speech, then tipped his hat to the Seahawks on their second-ever championship.
“Congrats to the @Seahawks,” Portnoy wrote on X. “They were better than us today.”
Despite the crushing result, the Barstool personality is looking at the glass half-full after a surreal turnaround of a season from Maye and first-year coach Mike Vrabel.
“We’ll be back. Nobody expected us to be here. The future is still so so so bright,” Portnoy responded after Maye’s emotional postgame presser.
Maye, whose shoulder injury had been a focus entering the game, said afterward he received a pain-killing injection before kickoff.
Sunday marked Portnoy’s Super Bowl return — seven years after he was booted from the Patriots’ 2019 win over the Rams.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
