Super Bowl Preview

I’ll admit, after Richard Sherman tipped the pass intended for Michael Crabtree, I went full-on bitter fan. My team’s season was over & I didn’t want anything to do with football anymore. I started looking fully into baseball & doing research for some pieces for baseball. The Super Bowl was placed on the furthest back of back burners, until now. The big game is today in New Jersey, and while some predicted a Snow Bowl of epic proportions, the weather is shaping up to be moderately cold and clear. This is good news for Peyton Manning and the Broncos, as Manning is notoriously worse in cold-weather games.  Manning is one of many, many players that will have an impact on the Super Bowl. Here I’ll break down every matchup in this super-sized Super Bowl super edition of MSSO.

Peyton Manning vs. The “Legion of Boom”
Richard Sherman (unsurprisingly) fired the first salvo of this competition, but he did it weeks ago when he did an article for Sports Illustrated’s Monday Morning Quarterback website. In his column, he praised Peyton for his ability but also got a dig in, saying that Manning throws “ducks.” Peyton conceded this week that he does, in fact, throw ducks. He went on to say that his ducks have netted him a lot of yards and a bunch of touchdowns. The Peyton vs. Sherman matchup is one that I’m not sure Manning can win play-in and play-out on Sunday.

Luckily for Peyton, his ridiculous receiving corps and the typical CB formation means that Manning won’t have to. According to ESPN Stats & Info, Richard Sherman lines up on the right side of the field 98% of the time. Unlike other corners who shadow the best receiver (in this case, by Sherman’s own admission, it is Demaryius Thomas), Sherman locks down whoever lines up on his side of the field. Put simply, Peyton Manning needs to stay away from Richard Sherman. If it was that easy, the Seahawks wouldn’t have had the stingiest pass defense in the NFL in 2013. Passing away from Sherman means passing towards Byron Maxwell & Earl Thomas (or K.J. Wright, depending on your target). Well, according to Pro Football Focus, you’re throwing away from the #6 cover corner and instead you throw towards #10 or #22 corner (or if you’re going towards the Tight End, that’s K.J. Wright, the #5 cover outside linebacker.

Peyton seems to be a bit overwhelmed with coverage issues in this situation, and it’s one that he’s not used to facing this year. The Broncos have faced only two of the top ten pass defenses on a YPG basis: the Texans and the Giants (and one theory on the Texans is they get crushed quick & early and teams would just run the ball to kill the clock). In the Giants game, on the very field where he’ll play the Super Bowl, he threw for 307 yards and 2 touchdowns, with a 69.7% completion rate and 7.1 yards per attempt. Peyton’s best trait, however, is taking what the defense gives him. He lead the team to 34 points (he doesn’t get credit for Trindon Holliday’s punt return touchdown), which is exactly as many points as the highest scoring Seahawks’ opponent in 2013.

And for all the talk of the “ducks” that Peyton throws, he boasted the second-best INT% of players that were starters all year (1.5% of his passes were intercepted, Alex Smith was #1 with 1.4% of his passes being intercepted). This is according to the data on sportingcharts.com.

Then we have the Seattle secondary. They’re just plain incredible at what they do; the best in the NFL. But then again, so is Peyton. The Seattle secondary needs to play exceptionally lock-down, since Peyton can quickly and accurately make sure the slipping defender is exploited. Luckily for the Seahawks’ secondary, they don’t slip often.  More important to the Seattle defense in the Super Bowl will be their pass rush, which brings us to our second matchup.

Peyton Manning vs. The Seattle Pass Rush
In the AFC Championship Game, on 43 pass attempts, the Patriots managed zero sacks and zero QB hits. I don’t know if Manning’s jersey even needed to be washed after the game. In fact, Manning was only hurried on seven of his throws at Mile High (according to Profootballfocus.com). Again, like the Seattle Secondary’s YPG (and likely a contributing factor to the same), the Seattle pass rush rated out as the best in the NFL (and by a wide margin) in 2013. Peyton actually faced the second-best pass rush in the NFL per PFF when he took on the Tennessee Titans in week 15. The Broncos managed 51 points and Peyton was, again, not sacked. He was hit only 3 times and hurried 10 times on 63 drop backs.

Peyton has no problem with the pass rush due to his pre-snap reads. He can read the coverage and the defense and knows where he wants to go before the ball is even snapped. He averaged a league-low 2.36 seconds to pass, which, if the Broncos offensive line can hold up, means that he will have enough time in the pocket for him to be comfortable.  Manning won’t tout a clean jersey in the Super Bowl like he did in the AFCCG, but contending with a formidable pass rush will not be a problem with Peyton. The only problem will be his offensive line wearing down.

The reason the Seattle pass rush is so effective is that they can rotate pass rushers that stay fresh all game. This cannot be said for the Broncos O-Line. The Seahawks have 5 D-Linemen that grade out as extremely good pass rushers per PFF & they effectively rotate these players in order to always have a fresh pass rusher available (on top of having guys like Bruce Irvin as situational pass rushers). The Broncos will have to go up big early if they want to keep these pass rushers at bay, since the Broncos O-Line is destined to break down and give up hits, hurries and sacks. The only question is if the game will be on the line when they do. 

The Broncos offense can’t & won’t be one-dimensional if they have any chance for success. They’ll need to get good games out of their backfield, lead by Knowshon Moreno.

Knowshon Moreno vs. The Seattle Run Defense
Seattle did not play a ton of great running attacks this year, and those they did play, by and large, were successful. Zac Stacy managed over 100 yards rushing against them, as did Arian Foster & Frank Gore. Surprisingly, Adrian Peterson was held to only 65 yards. Somehow Mike James tallied over 150 yards on the ground against them.  There isn’t really any rhyme or reason to who was able to have a big day against the Seahawks, only that it was rare. Knowshon Moreno made waves this year as he ended up over 1000 yards for the year rushing with 10 touchdowns. This was great for fantasy teams, but ultimately, Moreno didn’t contribute a heck of a lot to the Broncos offense as a running back, averaging just under 65 yards per game at just over 4 yards per carry.

Instead, Moreno chipped in 60 receptions for over 500 yards through the air in 2013. This will bring another wrinkle to the Broncos offense that the Seahawks will have to account for. If the Broncos can manage to keep the Seahawks in nickel or dime personnel, they can lighten the box or keep coverage off Moreno, and allow him to shine.

The Denver offense will have its hands full with the Seattle defense, the two great powers will smash into each other until one breaks. In fact, all the tension and drama will occur when Peyton Manning is Omaha-ing his way down the field. The guys playing while these two groups rest up hope to have a say in things, too.

Russell Wilson vs. The Broncos Defense
If the matchup between the Broncos offense & the Seahawks defense is a battle of Titans, then this matchup is the solid undercard. Neither team is known for these particular phases of the game, but they are both stronger and more dynamic than you would expect. It all starts with Sophomore play caller Russell Wilson. His ability to scramble and elude tacklers while keeping his eyes up the field is incredible. In fact, this ability may be exactly the reason why the Seahawks are in the Super Bowl. In the first quarter, he was able to elude the 49ers’ pass rush long enough to throw an absolute bomb to Doug Baldwin for 51 yards. This play keyed a Seahawks score that, thankfully for the 49ers, was only three points. However, his ability to extend plays and even take them up field using just his legs is vital to the Seahawks’ ability to pull one out at MetLife Stadium Sunday.

The Broncos faced three of the so-called “mobile quarterbacks” in 2013. They faced Terrelle Pryor twice, RGIII and Michael Vick once (before each was benched). Excepting Griffin’s 5 rushes for 7 yards, these mobile quarterbacks can do some damage to the Broncos defense, getting about 50 yards on the ground. In a game where the Seattle defense isn’t going to allow a ton of points, 50 yards from Russell Wilson could be the difference between Seattle winning and losing this football game.

The Broncos defense has a bit of an extra chip on their shoulder for two reasons. They’re playing without their best player, third-year linebacker Von Miller. They learned how to play without him early in the season due to his suspension, but losing him is still a big blow. They’re out to prove that they are more than the sum of their parts, and that the “next man up” doesn’t pose a problem for the Broncos. They’re also playing for Champ Bailey. Bailey is one of the better defensive backs in NFL history, racking up 12 Pro Bowl and 3 NFL All-Pro nods in his long and storied career, but this is his first Super Bowl. Long in the tooth, Bailey isn’t the player that he used to be, but he has the whole defense playing to get him his ring.

Free Agent acquisition Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie has been playing out of his mind this year, and despite Sherman’s boasts that he’s the greatest Cornerback in the game, he won’t even be the best Cornerback in MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Across the board, per PFF’s signature stats, DRC outperforms Sherman. He has more stops (plays wherein his actions caused a failure for the offense), a lower completion percentage and with more throws going his way. By Sherman’s own admission, great CBs get thrown-to. He has a higher coverage rating, as well. His weakness, compared to Sherman, is that he gives up longer plays. This may be because when he’s beat, he’s beat hard & with Sherman, he isn’t. Luckily for DRC, he’s not taking on world beaters.

Full Disclosure: My power went out right about here, so a lot of what follows is conjecture that hasn’t been fact-checked since I was without internet. I did my best to pull information on my cell phone.

Seahawks Receivers vs. Broncos Defense
The biggest wild card this weekend is the Seahawks’ receiving corps, mostly because Percy Harvin hasn’t been able to finish a game this season. He managed fewer than 20 snaps in both of his games played this year, going out with injuries both times. If the dynamic Harvin can stay on the field, he can cause nightmares for the Broncos D; he can lineup in the backfield as a running back, or take a screen pass the length of the field to the house. It will be interesting to see how the Broncos try to counteract Harvin’s playmaking ability. While they have Rodgers-Cromartie, they lost their second-best CB in Chris Harris Jr.  to an ACL tear in the Championship Game. This means that having DRC on Harvin means having inferior CBs on Doug Baldwin or Golden Tate. This could be an exploitable matchup for Russell Wilson, if he can get off his recent skid. He hasn’t been playing well as of late, and he’ll need to exploit the suddenly exploitable Denver secondary in order to do so. 

Beast Mode vs. Broncos Defense
Broncos are down Von Miller, but they can make it up by getting to Wilson with a mix of Shaun Phillips and Terrance “Pot Roast” Knighton. Knighton has been on fire as of late, posting four of his best games in his last five. He’ll make life difficult on Russell Wilson, but he’ll also play a big role in shutting down Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch. Lynch excels in big games, coming up huge two weeks ago in the NFC Championship Game with a 40 yard touchdown run, and who can forget the run that popularized Beast Mode? Ask the Saints, as he ran through, over and around the entire New Orleans defense en route to the 7-9 division winning Seahawks pulling an upset against the reigning champion Saints.

The Denver rushing defense was top-ten in the NFL in both yards per carry and total yards per game this season, so they aren’t used to getting run over. They have great playmakers not only in the aforementioned Phillips and Pot Roast, but also in Robert Ayers and Kevin Vickerson, who all graded out extremely well against the run this year. It will be difficult for Beast Mode to get going early, but much like with the Seattle pass rush, the Seattle run game succeeds by slowly chipping away at your rushing defense. In the NFC Championship Game, they weren’t getting much out of Lynch until he broke off his massive run, which is exactly how the Seahawks want to play it.

The Broncos and Seahawks ultimately matchup very well together. They’re two of the best teams in the NFL, and it’s appropriate that they meet up in the Super Bowl. The most prolific offense takes on the stingiest defense in a matchup that would make any NFL fan salivate. The other side of the ball has the Seattle pass and rushing attack take on a Denver defense that will match up very well against them. Ultimately, this game will come down to one big play. Like last year’s Super Bowl, where Jacoby Jones took the kickoff to the house. It could be a touchdown return from either Trindon Holliday or Percy Harvin, or a pick-six from one of the Legion of Boom or DRC. The problem with depending on turnovers is that while the Seattle defense thrives on them, the Denver offense does not give them up. While it’s more likely for Russell Wilson to throw a bad ball than Peyton, the Denver defense isn’t as opportunistic as Seattle.

With such an even matchup, I have to bet on experience winning the day. It’ll be a close one, but I think Peyton ties Eli and gets his second ring. Given that I honestly think the game will come down to one big mistake, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Seahawks come up with that play and I’m wrong.

Sorry about the late posting, folks. I finished this bad boy up and had to sit around waiting for the power to come back on. I doubt anyone will have time to read this before the Super Bowl, but I put far too much into this to just sort of set it aside!