The Seattle Seahawks clinched their first Super Bowl victory in a highly unexpected 43-8 blowout against the Denver Broncos on Sunday.
The 35-point win tied the third largest margin of victory in Super Bowl history and the first championship win for the city of Seattle since 1979.
In a matchup between the No. 1 offense and No. 1 defense, the old sports saying, “Defense wins championships” was quite apparent last night. Denver coughed up the game early and finished the night with four turnovers.
A safety and interception in the first quarter, a pick 6 in the second quarter, and a series of offensive penalties were the main highlights of a frustrating first half for Denver.
The first quarter was nothing short of a disaster for the Broncos. The Seahawks took an early lead after a miscommunication at the line of scrimmage amongst Denver’s offense in the first play of the game. Broncos’ center Manny Ramirez snapped the ball too early at Denver’s 15-yard line and over Peyton Manning’s head that forced Knowshon Moreno to recover the ball and be taken down in the end zone.
The Seahawks led 2-0 in just 12 seconds of play, the fastest score in Super Bowl history.
The safety was just a glimpse of what was to come for Denver.
In the second quarter, linebacker Malcolm Smith snagged Manning’s pass for a 69-yard interception return for a touchdown. He was named Super Bowl XLVIII MVP and finished the game with nine tackles and a fumble recovery.
“I always imagined myself making great plays but never thought about being MVP,” he said. Smith is the first linebacker to win MVP since Ray Lewis in 2001.
The beginning of the second half was even harsher for Denver. Percy Harvin scored on an 87-yard kick return in, yet again, the first 12 seconds of the half.
“They out-executed us and out-played us…we just made mistakes,” Manning said. “Seattle forced some of those mistakes…we couldn’t find a way to overcome it.” The Broncos are now 2-5 in their Super Bowl appearances.
For a second, literally, things started to look up for the Broncos when Demaryius Thomas caught a pass from Manning in the third quarter, but when Thomas began to run, Byron Maxwell punched the ball out of his hands for a Seahawks fumble recovery. However, Thomas would convert in the last play of the third quarter on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Manning. After setting an NFL record scoring 606 points in the regular season, this was only touchdown of the game for the league’s most high-powered offense. The rest was all Seattle.
“We didn’t play very well…we didn’t finish like we wanted to,” said Denver head coach John Fox after his second Super Bowl loss as a head coach.
Despite an awful team performance overall and several overthrown passes, Manning, a five-time league MVP, still managed to set a Super Bowl record with 33 completions and ended the game with 280 yards, one touchdown, and three turnovers.
Seattle was able to capitalize from Denver’s mistakes. Seahawks’ Russell Wilson finished with 206 yards, two touchdowns, and zero turnovers and became the third youngest quarterback to take home the Lombardi trophy.
“We played really good on D and did a nice job on offense,” said Seattle head coach Pete Carroll. “We’re taking this trophy back to the 12th man.”
- Karmen Robinson, Editor-in-Chief