Ryan Lee
Staff Writer
With Seattle’s huge win over San Francisco this past Sunday, 23-17, the Seahawks will be meeting the potent offense of Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos on Feb. 2, in arguably the biggest football game of the year, the Super Bowl.
The Bronco’s secured a spot in Super Bowl 48 with their dominating win against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots 26-16 in the AFC Championship on Jan. 19.
This year’s Super Bowl should be one for the ages, with the Seahawks only having made it this far one time before in 2005, and the Denver Broncos making their seventh appearance in team history.
While the Seahawk’s quarterback Russell Wilson is only in his second season in the NFL, he is facing veteran quarterback Peyton Manning, who already has a Super Bowl win under his belt with the Colts at Super Bowl XLI in 2007.
It is a story of David and Goliath this year, and Denver will be a sure favorite. In the AFC Championship game, Manning threw for 400 yards and two touchdowns, while Wilson put up more modest numbers against the 49ers in the NFC Championship game at just 215 yards and 1 touchdown.
The rushing game is a little more even numbers-wise with Seattle having 115 yards primarily on the back of Marshawn Lynch, and the Broncos having 107 yards distributed pretty evenly between Knowshon Moreno and Montee Ball.
Even with pretty solid running numbers for both teams, Super Bowl XLVII will be played primarily in the air. The Broncos held the Patriots to just 64 yards rushing in 16 attempts, but gave up 256 yards in the air.
The Seahawks, on the other hand, allowed more yards in the trenches at 161 total rushing yards, while only allowing 147 yards through the air.
With Denver having the ability to pound it through on the ground, and light up the sky with Manning’s precision passing, the Feb. 2 game will be a one-sided fiasco.
Although Seattle has a solid secondary, they will be ready for the monster that is Peyton Manning. If Seattle wants to stay in the game, they will need to put up huge numbers against the Bronco’s secondary and hope to make the game a shoot-out.
My prediction for the result of the game is Denver 35 – Seattle 17, with most of Denver’s points coming off the arm of Manning. If Peyton plays to his top game, he can throw for 400 plus yards again this game and potentially have four to five touchdowns.
Seattle has the potential to strike back if they run the ball well early. If Lynch breaks free on a few good runs in the early minutes of the first half, it will open up the play action pass for Wilson and his solid receiving core.
However, Seattle’s defense will struggle with the impending Broncos offense, and Peyton will put yet another Super Bowl ring on his finger.
