HTTP/1.1 302 Found Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 04:16:08 GMT Server: Apache Set-Cookie: NYT-S=0M1GSQjeRf3qrDXrmvxADeHAT8XWHTJiNrdeFz9JchiAIUFL2BEX5FWcV.Ynx4rkFI; expires=Wed, 05-Mar-2014 04:16:08 GMT; path=/; domain=.nytimes.com Location: http://ift.tt/LGSJ5l Content-Length: 0 nnCoection: close Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Apache Cache-Control: no-cache Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: 321120 Accept-Ranges: bytes Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 04:16:08 GMT X-Varnish: 221513971 221513925 Age: 1 Via: 1.1 varnish Connection: keep-alive X-Cache: HIT
View slide show|35 Photos
Super Bowl XLVIII: Denver Broncos vs. Seattle Seahawks
Super Bowl XLVIII: Denver Broncos vs. Seattle Seahawks
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. â€" There was pressure, so much pressure at MetLife Stadium. The Seattle Seahawks embraced it, inflicted it, reveled in it. They spoke all week of their respect for Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos’ record-setting offense, but wait until Sunday, they said, just wait.
To the Seahawks, Manning was just another quarterback to smother and suffocate, to force into bad decisions and worse throws and turnovers that would tilt the game in their favor. This was how the Seahawks had won all season, and this was how they won Super Bowl XLVIII. This was how they became champions.
The final score was Seahawks 43, Broncos 8, and yet somehow the margin of victory did not reflect the scope of Seattle’s domination. It was as if the Seahawks chose to unleash 38 years of frustration in 60 hellacious minutes, winning the first championship in franchise history before an announced crowd of 82,529.
Related Coverage
-
On Pro Football: Poor Game Seals Season but Not Debate on LegacyFEB. 2, 2014
-
Sports of The Times: Coaches Raised on Defense Followed Divergent Paths to Title GameFEB. 2, 2014
Many among that crowd â€" those clad in orange, at least â€" left early, having apparently decided it would be more enjoyable to stew in traffic, or in train-related congestion, than to watch the rest of what was either the most dominant performance by a team in recent Super Bowl history or the most disappointing.
In the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl, the demolition came on a night devoid of snow and chill, conditions ideal for a coronation. It began with a safety on the Broncos’ first offensive play, which, as omens go, was akin to a black cat opening an umbrella beneath a ladder in Denver’s locker room.
Seattle led by 8 points after the first quarter, 22 at halftime and 28 after three quarters â€" and only 28 because, on the final play of the period, Denver scored its first points. Yes, it took the Broncos, the highest-scoring team in N.F.L. history, 45 minutes to announce their presence.
To anyone who watched the N.F.L. this season â€" who watched Manning shred defenses â€" the Broncos’ struggles Sunday could be construed as a surprise. But Manning had also yet to encounter a defense as fast and as physical as the Seahawks, who pursued the football as if it were a treasure. Both of Manning’s interceptions led to Seattle touchdowns, including a 69-yard return by Malcolm Smith that would be the longest in Super Bowl history if not for the 74-yarder by Tracy Porter of New Orleans four years ago. That also came against Manning, whose place in football history â€" mere greatness, or the greatest? â€" emerged as a flash point in the two weeks leading up to Sunday.
Each touchdown pass he threw in his record-setting season â€" the best by a quarterback in league history â€" nudged him closer to immortality, to a realm where his legacy would be defined, if not determined, by his performance on Sunday. Playing on his brother Eli’s home field, Manning completed 34 of 49 passes for 280 yards but, like so many quarterbacks before him, lost his sheen against Seattle.
It was the Seahawks who deflected questions about Manning’s legacy into discussing their own, how they wanted to be known as one of the best defenses of the era, if not ever. No team allowed fewer points, or fewer yards, or was stingier in the red zone than the Seahawks, who held Denver to nearly 30 points below its average.
The Seahawks thrived despite only 39 rushing yards from Marshawn Lynch, their all-purpose running back. But really, they did not need him. Not with the versatile Percy Harvin carving up the Broncos’ defense with jet sweeps and an 87-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the second half. Or with Russell Wilson throwing two second-half touchdown passes, to Jermaine Kearse, who spun out of two tacklers and bounced off two more, and to Doug Baldwin.
On the sideline, the Seahawks’ dynamic coach, Pete Carroll, pumped his fist and slapped hands and delighted in the culmination of a four-year ascent. He is the rare coach who has won national championships in college and a Super Bowl title.
This was the rare crossover Super Bowl, a matchup that appealed as much to the casual fan as the football freak, with recognizable personalities like Manning and Richard Sherman who double as frontmen for their units, the best in the N.F.L. In some circles the game had been distilled into rather crude (and imprecise) terms, as villains versus the virtuous â€" those scoundrels from Seattle, with their brazen secondary and a raft of drug-related suspensions, and the likable folk from Denver, with a perfect pitchman at quarterback and a coach, John Fox, who roared back from midseason open-heart surgery.
None of the Seahawks had played in a Super Bowl before â€" the first team since the 1990 Bills to own that distinction â€" but it was the Broncos who seemed flustered by the moment, starting with their very first play. The opening snap sailed over Manning’s head and into the end zone for a safety, the fastest score â€" at the 12-second mark â€" in Super Bowl history.
Seattle added one field goal, then another, and by the end of the first quarter it had outgained the Broncos, 148-11. Before the Broncos could notch even a first down, they trailed by 15-0, after Lynch’s 1-yard touchdown run.
Put the internet to work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment