NFL: SUPER BOWL XLVIII---"LOOKING BACK, the OUTCOME EXAMINED

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team---milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed., Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. NFL: SUPER BOWL XLVIII---“Looking Back, the Outcome Examined”. . . // NFL: SUPER BOWL XLVIII became a sad event for Denver, Colorado, a death in the family. It wasn’t supposed to happen, the Denver Broncos being downhill from coin toss on, as if some Star Trek thing transported the NFL’s 2013 AFC championship team onto the lowest plain of football Hell, holding them there for four Q’s, except for moments when ascension was promised by a third Q TD followed by a two point conversion. Had that eight point pile-on not occurred, the Broncos would have been the first team in Super Bowl history to lose without scoring---zip, zero, Nada! . . . The victors on that dark and cold plain, the Seattle Seahawks, they were fearless against NFL-2013’s best offense and versus the season’s MVP, Broncos QB, Peyton Manning; the Seahawks defense quickly handed the football back to Seahawks QB, Russell Wilson, for a total of 31 ball possession minutes, during which Wilson led an offense that penetrated a Broncos defense for four touchdowns and two field goals by endgame. . . How could it have happened the way that it did, when so many credible football analysts had predicted a Broncos Super Bowl win? What happened to that Broncos force-of-will, those purpose-driven skills, that command of space and time for throwing and running a football for first downs, then points? What occurred exactly, or didn’t occur, for a Broncos defense that had kept opposing teams from scoring more than 20 in most of the franchise’s December and January games? . . . Scary was that the Broncos Manning-led attackers looked as if they had chosen to roll over and let the Seahawks own the day. Of course, this was an illusion, caused by a triple-threat Seahawks defense---“Optimum Speed,” “Incredible Strength,” “Super Bowl Smarts,” therefore we saw Seahawks defenders move to places where the Broncos pass receivers and ball runners had hoped to be open but were then covered/blocked as if defenders came down from the sky at Mach-5 speed. The operative words for the Seahawks defense were “impenetrable” and “suffocating.” From that, QB Manning couldn’t find space and time for his preferred air and ground options. Manning rarely had situational control; he was nearly always at the effect of the Seahawks pass rush and full field coverage. Were persons unfamiliar with American football to receive a briefing from NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, his best chance for an explanation of all that one team can do to defeat another would be to show film of Super Bowl XLVIII, where the Broncos were flailed by more than TD’s and field goals---intercepts, fumbles, an 87 yard kick return-TD, a two-point safety. Super Bowl XLVIII was Manning’s worst day since joining the Broncos two years ago. And, the Broncos defense couldn’t avoid regression, returning to performance factors of the early part of NFL-2013, when Broncos defenders couldn’t keep from allowing 20 and more to opposing teams. . . Throughout most of NFL-2013, and during the post-season (until the Super Bowl, that is) the Manning-led offense remained a luck charm for the Broncos defense, in that Manning’s MVP-earned performances, enhanced by superb receivers and ball runners, remained capable of making up for, and then surpassing, the number of points allowed to opposing teams by the Broncos defense. This did not happen for the Broncos as they faced the Seahawks at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. . . LESSONS LEARNED---WHETHER deliberate or improvisational, surely keys to the Seahawks being able to keep the Broncos offense down will be studied carefully by NFL coaches and players in coming months. Here’s a take on likely findings regarding the Seahawks defense versus the Broncos offense: ONE, and it couldn’t be more of a basic truth for Super Bowl play: When unsure if an opposing team’s receivers can be open for catching the football, highest priority for a defense should be elimination of the opposing QB’s ability to locate options for moving the football forward. In other words, denying QB power should be the primary “must-do” among several, which implies that on Sunday the Seahawks Head Coach, Pete Carroll, probably had as his number one goal, making Broncos QB Manning “IRRELEVANT.’” Probably Carroll went to the Super Bowl believing that the more important key to keeping the Broncos from winning the Lombardi trophy was stopping Manning, and that key to stopping Manning was the fast and accurate pass rush that could keep him from obtaining line-of-sight for a preferred and possibly open receiver. Carroll’s defenders gave that to him on a platter. . . TWO, Defenders should always view catch interference and the stopping of ball runners as prelude to higher objectives, for instance, exploiting a QB’s inaccurate throw or a receiver’s faulty positioning for the intercept and the fumble, so as to enact a turnover. . . THREE, Coverage of receivers should include readiness for instant switches to “styles of coverage” that are relevant to existing situations, so that coverage is always wide, deep, i.e., comprehensive, essentially of expansion and contraction, going for the impossible anyway (being everywhere where the ball might go), while also attempting to be the aggressive defense that can force opposing receivers and runners to have to go where they least desire to go, which is the defense that doesn’t allow an enemy to obtain many points. . . OFFENSE: A lesson learned from the Seahawks Super Bowl win is that a QB should not attempt to perform beyond his known capabilities. He should accept his limitations while doing his best to utilize his known strengths to full capacity. Seahawks QB Wilson seemed to be that QB on Sunday. Manning attained a Super Bowl record of 34 passes, but he had 14 incompletes, while Wilson completed much less, 18. However, Wilson suffered only seven misses and his completed passes led to two TD’s, while Manning’s larger number of completed passes led to one TD. Wilson did not attempt the long pass often. For the passing tactic, he relied mostly on the direct or off-to-the side short pass, on handing the ball to a runner for whatever number of yards could be gained, and on running around a widespread Broncos defense for considerable yardage when no other tactic was available for him. Wilson’s running game included 135 net yards, Manning’s a paltry 35. Wilson relied very little on fourth down efficiency, which is when he went for the field goal. Too, the QB of less experience and of fewer skills than that of an opposing QB, as in the Wilson/Manning comparison, can make up for shortfalls by having sufficient ball possession minutes to work downfield with, such as that awarded to Wilson during Super Bowl XLVIII by his team’s powerful and canny defense. As for making the most of ball possession minutes, Wilson directed 55 plays for nearly all of his team’s 43 points, while Manning led 64 plays for eight points (Ugh!). Oh, yes, a marginal enemy defense makes the job of accruing first downs and end-zone occupation a lot easier for the less experienced but still quite competent QB. . . But putting all of the above aside, the Denver Broncos finished NFL-2013 regulation at 15-3 and became the year’s AFC championship team, and Peyton Manning threw 55 TD passes in the year and became NFL MVP. That’s a great season, and a great football team, in spite of the poor Super Bowl showing; and, there’s NFL-2014 up ahead and the anti-grief medicine labeled, “Movin’ On.” END/ml