Monday - February 03, 2014

Half A Bowl Game Is Better Than None

Seahawks Trounce Broncos 43-8

What an amazing game. One for the record books I’m sure. The Seattle Seahaks showed up to play football, and I think the Denver Broncos showed up ready to play beer pong. All the media hype turned out to be pure hot air straight from the farmyard. This was the most one sided, laughable game I think I’ve ever seen in the pros. The Broncos seemed dazed, confused, and lethargic throughout most of the game, whereas the Seahawks were wound up and going 120mph all day. This was one of the quickest ball games I’ve seen in a long while, with lots and lots of plays stuck in between the endless blocks of commercials. My God. Stop with all the damn commercials every 90 seconds. PLEASE.

The Hype: Seahawks aces at defense, but maybe not so great on the offense. Broncos super on the offense, but maybe not so marvelous at defense. The reality: Seahawks show that the best defense is a good offense, Broncos show ... not much at all.

The Seahawks were ranked first in the league in pass defense, total defense and scoring defense during the regular season. The Broncos were first in pass offense, total offense and scoring offense. Manning had the most prolific season ever for an NFL quarterback. He set season records with his 5,477 passing yards and 55 touchdown passes and is virtually assured of winning his fifth MVP award. [which he did. Yay.]

I didn’t even get a chance to get all the beers open after the kickoff before Seattle scored, shoveling up a loose ball snapped way over Manning’s head, into the Bronc’s end zone for a fast 2 point safety. WTH? And the ‘hawks were on the board, within 12 seconds of play. Amazing. And the whole game was like that. Relentless. Textbook. A first rank pro team playing a Tier III high school team. Say what? The mighty Broncos, Kings Of Offense, couldn’t connect for beans, couldn’t run the ball anywhere, got intercepted left and right ... actually their best play was on the defensive offense, protecting Manning their QB, who didn’t get sacked once the entire game, and often seemed to have hours per play to figure out who to throw the ball to (so they could drop it, bumble it, get intercepted, or be in the wrong place again). He was extremely well protected; good football right there. But as for the rest ...

OMG.

I was a little fearful that this year’s Bowl would be a repeat of last years’ game, in which one team would utterly dominate the first half, then suddenly shut off just like a light switch to allow the other team to strut in the second half, going for “the big comeback”. There was no comeback here today, big or small. Seattle closed out the first half with a giant interception, sensational Malcom Smith getting the pigskin and running 3/4 the length of the field while dodging what seemed to be the entire Broncos team.  22-0.

After a short, and rather unimpressive Half Time show, which included an awful lot of yadda-yadda from the Old Guys From Monday Night, play resumed with yet another touchdown run, the ‘hawks Percy Harvin taking the floater kickoff on the 13 and lackadaisically jogging down the whole field for a TD.  I swear I could hear him laughing the whole way. This was play time for him. Extra point made it 29-0. And then, why not, after stopping the Broncos once more, the Seahawks scored another touchdown. 36-0.

Then it was time for a little sympathy sex, a bow to the bookies to make sure no SuperBowl is a complete shutout. The Broncos chugged the ball down the field and finally got across the goal line late in the 3rd. Then in a desperate play to get something on the score board, they went for a 2 point conversion.  This may have been a smart move, because we saw at least once in this game that the ‘hawks could just reach up and block their kicks at will. So a rather lame play gave them an extra 2, 36-8, and that was the first and last scores they had.

Another TD by the Seahawks was just icing on the cake, and by late in the 3rd period they pretty much stopped trying. There was nothing the Broncos could do and they knew it, so the 4th quarter was kind of ploddy and limp. They’d bought into the media hype that there were dominant. They didn’t bring their A game. They seemed hung over and exhausted all night. The ‘hawks utterly psyched them out by playing speedball and by showing the the Great Defenders best defense was a superb offense.

Malcom Smith got MVP, which was well deserved. Personally, the talent that wowed me the most was the Seahawk’s kicker, Steven Hauschka, who has to have one of the best feet in the game. It wasn’t that he made every field goal he attempted, racking up early points for the Seahawks. It’s that the guy has power and accuracy like a new Winchester; those kicks went right down the middle each time. And when it came to kickoffs, the guy consistently put the ball in the enemy end zone from his own 35, time after time, right under the goal posts. At least once he actually bounced the ball off the cross bars; it’s pretty obvious he could make field goals from 65 yards if necessary, maybe 70 with a bit of tailwind. 55-60 yards would be no challenge at all for him. I don’t watch my ‘ball these days, so maybe that’s common nowadays. But it impressed me.

From sharper pens than mine:

Seattle 43, Denver 8. Peyton Manning’s big game legacy: Doomed.

This is perhaps the most telling statistic to emerge from Super Bowl XLVIII and why the Seahawks won it: Denver had the best offense in football but after the first quarter the Broncos had accumulated zero first downs and had run just seven plays for 11 yards. The Seahawks made a statement and that statement was, “We are whipping your butt.”

The Broncos’ response was to let them.

Seattle’s steamrolling proceeded in bloodied and brutal increments: 2-0, then 5-0, then 8-0, and soon it was 22-0 and by the third quarter that Seahawks defense, with some help from special teams and the offense, had a 36-0 lead.

New Jersey cooperated with the weather, heating up for the warmest two days we’ve had since before Christmas. So now all the Super Bowl people have gone home, and we can get back to sub-freezing temps and another snow storm.

A better game recap than I can do, here.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/03/2014 at 02:20 AM   
Filed Under: • Sports •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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