Any casual football fan can see it happening in their mind’s eye. Two minutes left in the game. The Broncos are marching down the field against an exhausted and inexperienced Seattle defense. Most if not all of these young Seahawk defenders have never faced Peyton Manning before this day, and the all world quarterback is making them pay for their lack of experience.
The ball is at the Seattle 10 yard line. It’s third and goal. Manning has fired two straight incompletions, and the second one was nearly picked off by All-Pro corner Richard Sherman. The crowd falls silent as Manning leads the potent Denver offense back to the line. The signal caller’s 15 years of experience reading opposing defenses flashes through his head. He sees a tiny flaw in the Seattle coverage and yells out an audible. The audience watching at home can hear him yell, “Fat Man! Omaha! Omaha!”
The ball is snapped and Manning takes a five step drop. He goes through his reads in rapid progression. He pumps his shoulder as if to drop in a fade route right over Sherman’s head into the hands of top wideout Demaryius Thomas before throwing a strike right in the middle of the endzone into the waiting hands of tight end Julius Thomas for the touchdown. Denver takes a 34-31 lead with about a minute and a half left in the game.
The subsequent Seahawk drive comes up short at midfield when Broncos linebacker Shaun Phillips sacks quarterback Russell Wilson on the fourth down and the Denver offense heads back onto the field for the final kneel down. The Broncos win by a final score of 34-31 while Manning wins his second Super Bowl title and ensuing MVP award.
As football fans, we can all see the scene just described above. And why is that? Because we have all seen Manning, arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, do it time and time again. He is the engine that runs the high powered Denver attack. He is the reason why Knowshon Moreno ran for over a thousand yards this year. He is also the reason why Demaryius Thomas, Julius Thomas, Eric Decker and Wes Welker all had at least 10 touchdown receptions and over 60 receptions a piece during the regular season.
This will be the fifth time in Super Bowl history that the league’s top scoring defense (Seattle) has faced off against its top offense (Denver), and the top offense has only won one of the four previous matchups. Super Bowl XLVIII will be the second time that happens. The reason why? Peyton Manning will be leading the charge.
Don’t get me wrong. In order to have gotten this far, Denver has had to have been an all around great football team. The defense was solid all year and only got better during the postseason. Not to mention the fact that the Broncos have one of the best special teams units in the game led by kicker Matt Prater, who broke the NFL record for the the longest field goal ever made with a 64 yarder back in November.
By the time Super Bowl XLVIII has ended, it will be the combination of Peyton Manning and John Fox on the podium accepting the Lombardi Trophy. You can count on that.
Jordan Llanes can be reached at jordan.llanes@theminaretonline.com.