Sunday, February 2, 2014

SB XLVIII: Seahawks vs. Broncos Halftime Post

Score: SEA 22 DEN 0

Alright welcome in to a special Super Bowl Sunday halftime post between the NFC champion, Seattle Seahawks and the AFC champion, Denver Broncos where the Seahawks and the Legion of Boom are taking it to the record setting Broncos in a stunning 22-0 score heading into the half.

For the Seahawks, the positive all game long, all season long, the defense. A lot has been questioned whether or not the defense of the Seahawks can hang around with the fast-paced offense of the Broncos and they are proving that they can for a full 60 minutes. Starting out with a safety as the first play of the game (don't know if it was jitters from the Broncos' O) and following it off with two picks from Kam Chancellor, which the Seahawks capitalized on with a 1 yd TD run by Marshawn Lynch and Malcom Smith, who returned it for a 69 yard pick 6. The secondary is absolutely taking it to Denver's outstanding receiving corps (just ask Wes Welker as he played the same secondary last season as a Patriot). More positives this game, Russell Wilson passing for 94 yards, completing 9 of 14 passes and Percy Harvin, 2 carries for 45 quick yards on the ground. Harvin may not have played all season with the team, but he was opening up lanes for Kearse, Tate, Baldwin, and Harvin's return couldn't come at a great time. The negatives, Seattle doesn't have anything yet, aside from a couple blown red zone opportunities to put more hurt on the Broncos. Other than that, Seattle has played a clean and complete game so far.

For the Broncos, what just happened? In the regular season, this was the highest scoring offense in the league, but in the big game, they leave this half with a goose egg. Peyton Manning is on a limbo so far, unless he can really get it going in the first half, he started finding form finishing the half with 104 passing yards and completing 17 of 23 passes, but he did have that 2 picks. However the lone bright spot this game is Denver's D, Seattle would've continued to bring the pain on the Broncos, but the Denver Broncos defense have held them to a couple field goals. Denver's receiving corps is starting to get it going, Demaryius Thomas had a perfect 7 of 7 receptions for 47 yards, we still have yet to see Richard Sherman matched up against him since Byron Maxwell has been on him the majority of the game. Wes Welker another perfect 3 of 3 receptions for 26 yards, Julius Thomas targeted 4 times had 3 receptions for 19 yards, and Eric Decker no catches and credit goes to Sherman for shutting him down. Negatives, Denver cannot risk to turn the ball over any longer if they want to have a chance to win this game and cut back on costly penalties because they've made a couple of them when they were in Seattle territory.

The Seahawks they cannot stop on this lead, they just need to remind themselves that this is a 60 minute game and there are 2 more quarters. They are a young team and they are at risk of greatly blowing this, so they just gotta continue to play aggressive and they have to get Marshawn Lynch going as Russell Wilson has done a solid job taking care of the ball and controlling the clock. For the Broncos, they need something big such as a big second half by Knowshon Moreno, that running game has to get going to open up the playbook for the Peyton Manning and the Broncos. We'll see what happens in the 2nd half.

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