Manning gives Broncos slight edge
Denver can afford precisely zero mistakes against Seattle
Super Bowl week! New York! New Jersey! The weather!
Really, this Super Bowl could have been the grandaddy of them all when it came to gambling on the weather. There were prop odds and everything, though none of them included the odds of a team bus trying to get to the stadium in New Jersey and taking that exit — no wait, THAT exit — and then going round and round on roads that are close to where you’re going but don’t actually take you there, not quite, DAMN it, we’re headed back to Newark, while your GPS just gives up and tells you to turn around until you throw it out the window and into a frozen swamp.
So far, the storylines of Super Bowl week have included Marshawn Lynch not wishing to speak to the press (so?), Richard Sherman writing that Peyton Manning throws “ducks” (true, though he did specify they were accurate, on-time ducks), San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick saying Sherman was afraid of San Francisco’s receivers (seems unlikely), and the weather.
But the forecast is for a high of 6 C on Sunday, with barely any wind. Advantage Manning! Or something. This is the first time the No. 1 offence has met the No. 1 defence in the Super Bowl since Buffalo learned the words “Wide Right” in 1991, and that’s the headline act.
Seattle also has an offence and Denver also has a defence, and best of luck to both of them.
So, what else about the central matchup Sunday.
Let’s see.
Well, Seattle allowed a league-leading 14.4 points per game this season, which is great. They did it against the 25th, 24th, 31st, 11th, 17th, 19th, 21st, 26th, 32nd, 12th, 13th, 5th, 24th, 30th, 21st, 26th, 5th, and 24th-ranked offences, by yards gained.
Denver scored a league-record 37.9 points per game this season, which is great. And they did it against the 9th, 12th, 18th, 30th, 32nd, 27th, 19th, 21st, 24th, 23rd, 25th, 23rd, 15th, 24th, 7th, 18th, 24th, and 25th-ranked defences, by yards allowed.
So that’s an average of about the 20th-ranked offence for Seattle, or the Kansas City Chiefs, and an average of about the 21st-ranked defence for Denver, or the Washington Redskins.
The two teams are clearly excellent at their strengths and they obviously distorted those rankings to a degree, but Seattle also got the fifthranked Saints at home both times, while Denver got the seventh-ranked Texans at the sad end of a 2-14 season.
Neither team has faced anything quite like this yet.
Denver has had two of its three lowest-scoring games of the year in the post-season, but that’s partly because of how they’ve done it — grinding out five- and sixand seven-minute drives, stringing together short passes and intermediate passes and run plays, keeping guys like Philip Rivers and Tom Brady off the field. Seriously, the Broncos have punted once in two games. Denver’s punter spent most of his time playing Sudoku on his phone and smoking cigarettes and looking at the crowd, wondering whether any of them understood his loneliness.
Seattle, meanwhile, forces teams into the short game, because throwing deep on them is a nightmare.
According to Pro Football Focus, Seattle was attacked deep while lined up in press coverage 24 times this season, and two of the passes were completed, versus five interceptions.
Oh, and the Seahawks, as detailed by the Wall Street Journal, cheat. They grab receivers, glom on, commit five penalties when you can only call one, if that.
As New York Giants wide receiver Louis Murphy told the Journal, “They just seem to not care about the rules,” which, golly, doesn’t sound like a program coached by Pete Carroll at all.
The Broncos, meanwhile, run pick plays that skirt legality, so a big part of this Super Bowl may be the contest of who cheats more effectively, which is a nice tribute to nearby Wall Street, or Tony Soprano’s New Jersey. Whichever.
So: Who will win? The pick Seattle (+2.5) at Denver This space’s best moment was probably picking the Giants to upset the 17-0 Patriots by a field goal in 2008, which was basically decided by the craziest catch in Super Bowl history, and was therefore basically an expression of a chaotic universe. That was probably the closest recent matchup to this.
Meanwhile, this one feels like it will come down to whether Seattle can handle Manning, or not.
Can they rush four guys and force Manning to move his feet and hold the ball a little longer and pat it, whisper, “It’ll be OK, ball, it’ll be OK” as the blue-and-green madmen get closer, closer? Can they take away enough of his weapons — Demaryius Thomas, Julius Thomas, Wes Welker, Eric Decker, Knowshon Moreno, all with at least 60 catches and 10 touchdowns, pick a card — and stop those long, clockeating drives?
Because if they can, well ... Denver’s defence has played the run well lately, so Russell Wilson will have to do some work for Seattle. And still, Manning will probably have to be great, and that’s the trick. Manning has spent a lifetime memorizing details and formations and patterns, and can read them without effort, but Seattle doesn’t really trick you so much as it hits you, maybe holds you, takes things away.
You can’t make many mistakes against Seattle.
And the last time Manning was in a Super Bowl he threw a game-sealing pick six against New Orleans with three minutes to go.
He’s got another chance, and he’s got one hell of an opponent.
No quarterback has ever won Super Bowls with two different franchises.
Test of a lifetime, coming up, and it says here he has just enough to pass. Pick: Denver 24, Seattle 23. Last week: 0-2 Season: 123-134-8