SANTA CLARA, Calif. — In the closing seconds of the third quarter of Super Bowl LX, Seahawks outside linebacker Derick Hall and defensive tackle Byron Murphy II teamed up to force a critical turnover.
As New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye was trying to step up into a collapsing pocket on third down, Hall dropped him for his second sack of the game. As with the first one, he reached behind his back and fired an imaginary arrow into the sky — this time not realizing that he had forced a fumble that Murphy had fallen on.
Murphy would finish with two sacks of his own, including one earlier in that drive. But it was his recovery of Hall’s forced fumble that set up the Seahawks’ lone offensive touchdown five plays later, which gave them a 19-0 lead.
“I heard everybody screaming and saw Murph in the end zone with the ball,” he said, referring to how several defenders had jogged down-field to celebrate. “I’m like, oh, dang, that’s what’s up.”
Four months earlier, Hall gave Murphy a much different kind of assist, one the two both reflected on as Seahawks players were smoking cigars and downing their drink of choice inside a raucous Seattle locker room at Levi’s Stadium following their 29-13 win on Sunday.
It came in the form of a motivational text message.
On Oct. 7, Murphy’s fiancée Maya Hurd gave birth to their first child three months prematurely. Danee’ Azaria weighed only two pounds, five ounces, born so early that she would require intensive care for the first two months of her life.
If anyone knew what both the child and her parents were in for, it was Hall, who was born 23 weeks premature in 2001. So when he learned of the situation with Murphy’s daughter, the first thing Hall did was send him pictures of himself as a two-plus-pound newborn who’d been given next to no chance to live.
He’d already told Murphy his miracle story. But he felt his teammate could now use a reminder about how Hall had beaten much bleaker odds than what Murphy’s daughter was facing.
“He was like, ‘Man, that’s amazing,'” Hall said. “… You don’t know what that next phone call’s going to be and how everything’s going to turn out. To be able to have faith and prayer and everybody just being able to love up on him, but also be able to have that connection as someone who’s been there, who’s done that, who can kind of help talk to you, guide you, my mom can talk to his mom, Maya.
“Just being able to be there for him, I think that was huge.”
Murphy said the gesture meant a lot to him.
“Seeing D-Hall and just seeing how far he came, it just gave me motivation to always keep going,” Murphy said. “He came out with no heartbeat, but he fought, though.”
As detailed in a 2023 SportsCenter Featured video, shortly after the Seahawks drafted Hall in the second round, he had to be resuscitated by doctors when he was born without a heartbeat.
“It was about 20 physicians and specialists in the room,” Hall’s mother, Stacy Gooden-Crandle, said in the piece. “They said to me he had a 1% chance of living, and if he lived through the night, he would have no quality of life. He wouldn’t walk, he wouldn’t talk. And they basically said to me, ‘Are you prepared to take care of a child like that? And if you’re not, here’s this form, sign it.'”
She refused to take her son of life support.
“I did not sign that form,” Hall’s mother said. “I could not. I had to give him a shot.”
Hall was taken off a ventilator after three weeks. He was sent home after spending four months and five says at the hospital. He continued to deal with health challenges in his youth, including an underdeveloped respiratory system.
After recording two sacks and a forced fumble on Sunday to help the Seahawks claim their second Lombardi Trophy in franchise history, Hall recalled how he only began playing football in elementary school because he saw the sport as a way to increase his lung capacity.
“It’s a hell of a story,” Murphy said. “Being a preemie born with no heartbeat, the doctor telling your parents you’re going to be a vegetable — to being a Super Bowl champ. It’s crazy, man. It’s all God.”
Murphy, a 2024 first-round pick, broke out in Year 2 with seven sacks during the regular season before adding two more against New England. Three days before the game, his face lit up when he was asked how his daughter was doing. He happily reported that she weighs over nine pounds, and that after two months in intensive care, she went home before Christmas.
“That was a great feeling,” he said.
Seahawks players and coaches were joined in the Bay Area by family members later in the week. Murphy’s fiancée and daughter were there.
“I’m just so blessed to be in this position,” he said, noting he has a Super Bowl championship, an upcoming wedding and a healthy daughter.
“Seeing my daughter come out as a preemie, weighing two pounds, tubes running all through here and everything, to see how far she came now, it’s a blessing,” Murphy said. “But the main thing it taught me was always keep going. No matter what, fight. As long as you’ve got breath in you, fight.”
