Peyton manning has not faced a top 5 defense all year

[Papa-pwn]

Just playing devil's advocate, if you wanna play the "so and so hasn't played against a top 10 so and so".....

The Seahawks defense only faced one top 10 offense this season, the saints. and Drew Brees sucked on the road this season. In two weeks, Seattle's defense will be playing against LITERALLY the best offense in the history of the NFL. Also, no more homefield advantage for that defense. Seattle D will not have the CLink behind them.

#1 defense vs #1 offense...should be a fun game

Meh, we faced the Packers and Patriots offenses last year, and won both games. Our defense can take on anybody. The Broncos having the easiest schedule two years in a row is a point ignored by most Broncos fans I've noticed, however.

It is ignored because it is false. The AFC west sent 3 teams to the playoffs this year. The Denver Broncos schedule was filled with teams with a cumulative .500 win percentage this year.

18 other NFL teams had a schedule with the same, or worse, win percentage. The Seahawks' opponents win % this year was 52%. Not a whole lot better.

Perhaps you are trying to use the preseason Strength of schedule rankings agains Denver? I hope not, as that would be a terrible argument, considering the fact that KC and SD were expected to be weak and both made the playoffs. Preseason SOS rankings use the records of teams the year prior. That would be a mistake on your park to try and use that as an argument piece, you should instead look at the season that just took place, and the records of the teams for this year, not last year.

Doing that, like I said, Denver's schedule would be tied for 15th in the league in terms of opponent win %. Not an extremely difficult schedule, but not at al the "easiest".

 

[TDOTSEAHAWK]

The DVOA of the defense they have faced is 30th.

Hawks DVOA of offenses they have faced is 31st.

Hawks offfense however, has faced a plethora of top-10 defenses and still finished top 10 in DVOA.

Broncs defense finished 15th in DVOA against a 24th ranked schedule.

 

[amill87]

Flip it around and our offense has faced a top 5 defense 6 times. They are 5-1 in those games.

Take it one step further and they faced 10 top 10 defenses. They are 8-2 in those games.

Easiest schedule two years in a row? AFC West was the best division in the NFL...3 of the 4 teams made it. They also played a 1st place schedule for winning the AFC West last year.

Denver: 13-3
Kansas City: 11-5
San Diego: 9-7
Oakland: 4-12

Seattle: 13-3
San Francisco: 12-4
Arizona: 10-6
St. Louis: 7-9

Best division in the AFC? Absolutely but do you really think San Diego or even Kansas City makes the playoffs in the NFC?

 

[SalishHawkFan]

Denver isn't literally the best offense in history, but they're ranked 5th or 6th since 1989. Seattle's D is ranked 7th since 1989. Thing is, Seattle's secondary IS the greatest of all time and Denver's running game isn't their bread and butter, their passing game is.

Should be a great game.

 

[Exittium]

Or we shut these AFC homer fans up by saying the AFC was the princess conference this year. AFC teams played like garbage and All had pretty easy schedules. NFC was a dominant force. And the broncos are No way shape or form going to beat the hawks and the Leagues NUMBER 1 DEFENSE

 

[Lords of Scythia]

Peyton Manning saw that Sherman freakout after the NFC championship game and just about s*** - "I'm going against these freaks!? In the Super Bowl?? They're scary like pro wrestlers or Navy SEALs!"

 

[Papa-pwn]

Peyton manning has not played against a top 5 defense this entire year



Baltimore - 12th ranked defense (12th)
New York Giants - 8th ranked defense (18th)
Oakland - 22nd ranked defense (29th x 2)
Philadelphia - 29th ranked defense (17th)
Dallas - 32nd ranked defense (26th)
Jacksonville - 27th ranked defense (tied for 27th) (28th)
Indy - 20th ranked defense (loss) (9th)
Washington - 18th ranked defense (30th)
San Diego - 23rd ranked defense (11th x 3)
Kansas City - 24th ranked defense (5th x 2)
New England - 26th ranked defense (loss) (10th x 2)
Kansas City - 24th ranked defense (5th x 2)
Tennessee - 14th ranked defense (16th)
San Diego - 23rd ranked defense (11th x 3)
Houston - 7th ranked defense (these guys were on full tilt mode by this time of the year) (24th)
Oakland - 22nd ranked defense (29th x 2)


and now he is facing the number 1 defense and is supposed to roll? hahaha LOB

I wonder if those poor number have anything to do with the fact that they played the best offense, statistically, in the history of the NFL?

Also, I noticed you are using their rankings against yardage. If you use their defensive ranking against points, you will find Denver played several games against top 10 scoring defenses, and still broke the NFL record for points scored. I have placed each teams scoring defense rank in parenthesis, as well as the number of times the teams played each other.

So if we look at points, Denver has played 5 games against top 10 scoring teams, and 9 games against teams in the better half of the league against points.

Hardly a cupcake defensive schedule, and makes their record shattering season even more impressive.

I will concede that Seattle has the best defense in the league, much better than anyone Denver has faced. Though the only top 10 QB Seattle has faced is Brees.

Cam Newton
Chad Henne
Matt Schaub
Andrew Luck
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Kellen Clemens
Mike Glennon
Matt Ryan
Christian Ponder
Colin Kaepernick
Eli Manning
Carson Palmer
Kellen Clemens

The remaining QBs sans Brees are barely above average to below average.

 

[Papa-pwn]

Denver isn't literally the best offense in history, but they're ranked 5th or 6th since 1989. Seattle's D is ranked 7th since 1989. Thing is, Seattle's secondary IS the greatest of all time and Denver's running game isn't their bread and butter, their passing game is.

Should be a great game.

I thought Denver broke the record for points scored, no?

 

[brimsalabim]

This is going to be tuff. Payton will use our aggressive nature against us. Our guys will have to play with a level of discipline they have not shown recently. Payton will draw our D off sides 10 times or more and worse he will get us to show our hand pre snap.

 

[youngchew]

Denver isn't literally the best offense in history,

I thought Denver broke the record for points scored, no?

That's what i was referring to when I made that statement. Maybe not total yards or anything, but to me, if your offense scored the most points in a single season in NFL history, I consider you the best offense of all time.

I have no ill will here towards Seattle. Seahawks defense is nasty, and I love Marshawn Lynch. I also like Manning, so I'm just hoping for a good game.

 

[Blitzer88]

The one matchup that scares me is Welker VS Thurmond. In the preseason peyton abused thurmond in the slot.

Actually it was Winfield that was getting picked apart by Peyton and Welker. WTIII, if i remember correctly, didn't get a chance to cover Welker much.

 

[HeatEquation]

Denver ran an illegal pick play with Welker to deliberately injury Talib yesterday. Your team will have to be ready for that. Talib was shadowing DT and was doing a very good job on him. In the week 12 meeting, Talib limited DT to 4 catches and 41 yards. After Talib went down, DT pretty much abused our secondary.

You're right, Denver hasn't faced anywhere near as good a defense as he will in the SB. I have no doubt the Hawks will make Manning look like he did against the 2003 & 2004 NE Patriots.

 

[rideaducati]

Just playing devil's advocate, if you wanna play the "so and so hasn't played against a top 10 so and so".....

The Seahawks defense only faced one top 10 offense this season, the saints. and Drew Brees sucked on the road this season. In two weeks, Seattle's defense will be playing against LITERALLY the best offense in the history of the NFL. Also, no more homefield advantage for that defense. Seattle D will not have the CLink behind them.

#1 defense vs #1 offense...should be a fun game

I'm not too worried. The third preseason game is the dress rehearsal for the season and Peyton wasn't able to get rid of the ball very quickly in that game. When the first starter left the field, the Seahawks were up 31-7. If Manning tries those rainbow passes he got away with against the Pats, he'll get picked. The match ups in this game favor the Seahawks. The Seahawk defense cancels out the Bronco offense and the Bronco D will get torched by the Seahawks offense.

 

[youngchew]

Denver ran an illegal pick play with Welker to deliberately injury Talib yesterday.

do you really believe that??

I personally hate Wes Welker, but to believe they would deliberately draw up a play to hurt another players...I don't buy it. And who knew how Talib was going to react to Welker's hit?

 

[CANHawk]

Immovable force meets unstopable object. No real way to debate it, just have to wait and see how it plays out on the field.

.........unfortunately we have to wait 2 weeks to see it play out on the field, so people will be falling all over themselves trying to debate it anyway.

My take on it; Peyton's great. Can't deny it and you're a fool to try. However, one of the things that makes Peyton so great is his uncanny ability to get the ball out super fast. However nasty your rush is, it's all for naught if he doesn't have the ball when you get to him. That unfortunately though is entirely contingent upon actually having somebody to throw it to. Our secondary is legendary for it's ability to jam recievers into oblivion at the line and wreak havoc on precision timing offenses, such as Peyton and his quick hit style that has done such a great job of keeping him upright.

I think that Denver's success will have less to do with Peyton doing anything amazing than it will have to do with Denver's 4 big name recievers getting separation at the line. If Peyton has to hang on to the ball for a few extra seconds while his recievers fight to get open; our D-line is going to collapse that pocket and be all over the old man. We just have too much heat coming at Peyton for him to hang on the ball and think about it. I think it'll behoove Denver to really commit to the running game early to keep our D-line committed to their gap assignments, because if our guys start to realize they can get creative with their pass rush... it could get real ugly, real fast.

This is going to be such a chess match. Lucky for us, we've had two great dress rehersals for this type of precision offense against New Orleans. Unfortunately for Peyton though, he ain't NEVER met a mutha quite like us...

 

[JGfromtheNW]

These Broncos fans are laughable. The defenses they faced this year were a joke - cumulatively. Two teams in the top 10 wooooo, watch out. Not a single one of those defenses should or could be compared to the number one defense in the league this year. The DVOA percentage between our defense and number two was like 25-30%.

This defense is built to give an offense like the Donkeys fits. We play out of a base nickel A LOT which will play to our strength. Broncos run the ball most effectively out of three WR sets and their passing game relies on timing and reading a field with no pressure. Guess what? The Hawks are all about jamming receivers, slowing them down and getting pressure with the front four. Their statue of a QB won't be able to do jack if he can't get those rhythm passes going. He's an old man and if he gets his bell rung he's gonna be wincing and hearing footsteps every second he doesn't get the ball out of his hands.

As pointed out before, Seahawks were 8-2 this year playing 10 games against top 10 defenses and 5-1 in the SIX games they played against top five defenses. Yes that says six. An infinite amount more than the Broncos played this season.

BTW, the AFC West can't even hold the NFC West's collective jock.

 

[tdlabrie]

Denver isn't literally the best offense in history

Absolutely correct! Despite Manning's incredible stats, this year their Total Ooffense is third behind Indy and who? Oh yeah, that team we just beat, the Whiners. And even the Pass Offense is second behind Indy.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics

But what really interests me is that their Defense sucks! #19 for Total Defense, #7 for Rushing Defense, and a whopping #27 for Pass Defense! WooHoo! And these guys are actually favored? :34853_doh:

 

[skater18000]

The one matchup that scares me is Welker VS Thurmond. In the preseason peyton abused thurmond in the slot.

... and we then proceded to beat them by 30 points

*Winfield... Thurmond doesn't get abused.

 

[amill87]

Immovable force meets unstopable object. No real way to debate it, just have to wait and see how it plays out on the field.

.........unfortunately we have to wait 2 weeks to see it play out on the field, so people will be falling all over themselves trying to debate it anyway.

My take on it; Peyton's great. Can't deny it and you're a fool to try. However, one of the things that makes Peyton so great is his uncanny ability to get the ball out super fast. However nasty your rush is, it's all for naught if he doesn't have the ball when you get to him. That unfortunately though is entirely contingent upon actually having somebody to throw it to. Our secondary is legendary for it's ability to jam recievers into oblivion at the line and wreak havoc on precision timing offenses, such as Peyton and his quick hit style that has done such a great job of keeping him upright.

I think that Denver's success will have less to do with Peyton doing anything amazing than it will have to do with Denver's 4 big name recievers getting separation at the line. If Peyton has to hang on to the ball for a few extra seconds while his recievers fight to get open; our D-line is going to collapse that pocket and be all over the old man. We just have too much heat coming at Peyton for him to hang on the ball and think about it. I think it'll behoove Denver to really commit to the running game early to keep our D-line committed to their gap assignments, because if our guys start to realize they can get creative with their pass rush... it could get real ugly, real fast.

This is going to be such a chess match. Lucky for us, we've had two great dress rehersals for this type of precision offense against New Orleans. Unfortunately for Peyton though, he ain't NEVER met a mutha quite like us...

QFT.

Strength of schedule, division toughness, and who each team has played doesn't have a real effect on this game. Neither team has faced a team like they are about to face. The closest the Broncos got to facing an elite defense is the Chiefs and the Broncos scored quite a bit both times. The closest the Hawks got to facing an elite offense is the Saints and the Hawks shut them down both times.

They key to chess match is going to be can the Broncos run and can they pass protect longer than they have had to all season.

There is a one significant advantage the Hawks over the Broncos. The Hawks can win games multiple ways. The Broncos only win on the back of Manning. It's a huge task and not very easy but if the Hawks slow down Manning, does anyone honestly think the Broncos have a chance to win by their defense or run game?

 

[Penman96]

Tired old argument maybe - but I still think Manning's play takes a hit in the cold. We will see.

Also heard on the FOX broadcast after the Seahawks game finished that Wes Welker had made and shown a video to his team mates - that included all the tough and nasty hits the Broncos delivered this year. His reasoning for the video was to show the team what kind of football to expect from an opponent like Seattle or San Francisco.

If true - this tells us that the Broncos know this game is not just about offense vs. defense stats and / or skills. It is about the overall level of physical violence that will be involved, and the commitment to accepting and dealing out that punishment.

It is clear that the Seahawks revel in dishing out a beating on an opponent. This game with be about who is the aggressor, who is the bully. That commitment to physicality is where I think the Seahawks have the edge.