Did Gus Bradley help our Defense in the Super Bowl?

Bored, re-reading some Super Bowl articles, hadn't noticed ESPN's game recap has "Research Notes" on the side of the screen. This one really stood out to me:

"The Broncos gained 46 yards after contact on 48 combined rushes and completed passes in Super Bowl XLVIII. The Broncos had only one game with fewer yards after contact this season (43 in Week 6 vs Jaguars)."

I had forgotten that the lowly Jaguars had almost beaten the "unstoppable" Broncos during the season (lead at the half and played them tight until the 4th quarter as per the game summary), but I never saw the game firsthand.

Anyone actually watch this game? Did it look like the Jaguars "figured out" the great Manning? Did the Defense happen to, oh...I dunno...take away the deep routes and keep everything in front of them? Just curious if there were similarities since Gus was "One of Us".

I'd say it's probably more likely that Gus watched our preseason thrashing of the Broncos. Our starters versus their starters wasn't even fair...Much like the rematch in New Jersey a few months later.

The Jags, defensively at least, played the Broncos about as tight as anyone did for a large portion of the game. Eventually the talent discrepancy was too much to overcome.

But if Bruce Arians gave Manning as much as it was reported that he did, I'm guessing the Hawks picked Gus' brain about the matchup as well.

watching the all 22 of the Jags game was when I knew we would win the Bowl.

Did Pete talk to Gus? I am sure he did. But I doubt it was much of a factor.

Saw someone made this point a while ago that when they saw Jacksonville give that much trouble to the Broncos, they knew the Seahawks would win. The Jags run essentially the same type of defense that we do and Bradley is running the organization as Pete would.

dontbelikethat":2ffr9f9j said:

Saw someone made this point a while ago that when they saw Jacksonville give that much trouble to the Broncos, they knew the Seahawks would win. The Jags run essentially the same type of defense that we do and Bradley is running the organization as Pete would.

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I think that is his goal. We will see how it works out.

I just saw how much trouble Denver had with press coverage. Two San Diego games were similarly educational.

This game was cited by some NFL fans on an NFL forum I use as evidence why the Hawks would win. If the Jags could give them fits with their similar defense, then the Hawks should do damage with a lot more talent was essentially what they said. Of course it was a Jags fan who first brought it up.

Of course a Jags fan would be pleased with their defense giving up 407 yards and 35 points..

Barthawk":3pbye5ap said:

Of course a Jags fan would be pleased with their defense giving up 407 yards and 35 points..

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You have to watch it or you won't understand. For almost 3 quarters the Broncos looked out of sorts trying to beat press. The point total has more to do with the inept Jaguar offense.

Did he help us? No, but his schemes and game planning strategies are obviously very similar to what we do on defense. Unfortunately the Jags don't have the personnel to do what we did to the Broncos.

Barthawk":2bdc45j0 said:

Of course a Jags fan would be pleased with their defense giving up 407 yards and 35 points..

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It was 21-19 late in the 3rd.. the Jags played them very tough. Impressive considering the amount of "talent" they had on defense.

I would guess that Seattle's 2013 preseason game against Denver played a bigger role in informing the team's strategy for the Super Bowl.

I said this even before Super Bowl: Peyton came to play for that pre-season game. He wanted to test himself, see where he was at. That game provided valuable tape, and the lessons from that game probably helped Gus for his regular season meeting with Denver.

From Earl Thomas's blog (expanding on my post above):

We learned a lot from watching film of the preseason game we played against Denver. Peyton Manning was in the game for a long time, and it was a lot like a regular season game situation. When we watched their playoff game against San Diego, we noticed that they were still kind of running some of the stuff we saw in the preseason.

The coaches did a great job of getting us ready, and then we talked amongst ourselves. We put what we were all thinking about Peyton and how he was going to attack us on the board, and talked it through. By the time we were done, we had worked everything out. There were no grey areas.

We felt very confident after that.

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The blueprint for beating the Broncos was written in the 80's. As one of the old farts around here, I remember the Elway QB'd teams that went to the SB back then, with similar results. The menu was the same: a high powered, QB centered offense against a balanced team with a strong defense. In SBs XXI, XXII, and XXIV, they lost to the Giants, 'Skins, and Niners by a combined score of 136-40.

History repeated itself in SB48. In retrospect, I wasn't surprised by the blowout, or at least not that much.