Super Bowl Thread

[MattR]

25 pages of bitching about a crappy commercial means the super bowl was rigged...geez guys get outside every now and then

[Ridge]

25 pages of bitching about a crappy commercial means the super bowl was rigged...geez guys get outside every now and then

Actually, it was like 8 posts complaining the game was rigged. Everything else comes from the regular thread.

[Ridge]

[Jer]

[Aloha_Shooter]

Hahahahaha, okay, that made me laugh.

[tmleadr03]

[Aloha_Shooter]

Nice breakdown in the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...hatsNewsSecond

Some highlights:

Seattle's strategy focused on containing Denver's vaunted short passing game, exposing the Broncos as a team with surprisingly few tricks in their offensive bag.

The Seahawks gladly let Manning break the Super Bowl record for completions. He connected on 34 of his 49 passes. The hulking Seattle defense held those passes to an average of 8.2 yards per completion, the third-worst mark in Super Bowl history, according to Stats LLC. The plan was simple: Let Manning have his short passes, but make sure they stay short.

The first rule of facing Manning is don't blitz. According to Pro Football Focus, there were 184 instances this season when brave, foolish souls blitzed Manning; he devastated them in response, compiling a quarterback rating above 100 in those situations.
The point of blitzing—that is, sending defenders other than linemen to rush the quarterback—is to get the quarterback uncomfortable, gambling that he won't be able to find the hole in the defense that was created when the blitzing player left his post. That doesn't work on Manning. The Seahawks knew this, so they tried something else.

The Seahawks wanted to keep every play in front of them to prevent the Denver wide receivers from executing their blocking schemes to break off big gains after the catch—the Broncos' trademark.

To counteract these and the "pick" plays Denver runs, in which one receiver runs interference for another by running into a cornerback, the Seahawks had a clear plan.
When two Denver receivers lined up next to each other, Seattle cornerbacks such as Richard Sherman would begin to backpedal before the snap. This was to get away from the Bronco receivers. The Seahawks knew those receiver pairs likely would try to pick the cornerback—or to execute downfield blocking on a short pass, which could lead to even bigger gains.

Someone really studied the opponent's game films. All the more reason to praise the Seahawks for what they did rather than berate the Donkeys for what they didn't do.

[Jer]

To be fair none of this was a secret prior to the Superbowl. The Seahawks were the first team with the talent to be able to execute the plan. Other teams had the same ideas but w/o the great defensive talent at every position that the Seahawks have they couldn't execute and that's when Peyton could find weaknesses to exploit for gains, touchdowns & eventually wins. Like I said before, Seattle didn't do anything extraordinary they just did something ordinary extraordinarily well. Pretty much their game plan all season long.

[Dave_L]

The more time that passes from the game the more calm I am about the game. Seattle played some straight up quality football. Pretty impressive as much as I hate to say it. Old school, hit ya in the mouth, pigskin.

The plus side is we play the NFC west next year. Four regular season games against smash mouth defenses. Hopefully that helps prep us for post season games.

[Circuits]

Sherman said they'd figured out most of Manning's hand signals, so were able to get a jump on every offensive play. If so - what a masterful job of analyzing the opponent's offense on tape, and playing smart. They sure did something special to dominate like they did.