In the immortal words of Ron Burgundy: “Boy, that escalated quickly!”
Had you told me beforehand that one of the Super Bowl teams would score 43 points and win, I would have assumed that was Denver. But, nope! We got a 43-8 slobber-knocker of a victory, courtesy of the Seattle Seahawks and their “Legion of Boom” defense.
Our office was split on the outcome: two football fans went for Peyton Manning and the Broncos, and the other two (myself and our resident Tim Tebow fan) had picked Seattle. Sorry, Mike: defense wins championships!
I got to kick back at a buddy’s house with some homemade meatball subs, and it was nice to be able to hear myself think during the game for the first time since college. But, for much of the game, I kept thinking the same thing: “Who the heck saw this coming?”
My prediction was 23-20 Seattle, on the legs of a late scoring drive in the fourth quarter. Everyone I had talked to had the same idea, though mostly in Denver’s favor. Future boxing Hall-of-Famer Floyd Mayweather thought the Broncos would come out looking like a million bucks — well, more like $10.4 million. But talking to my friends doesn’t always tell me much about the game itself, so I wondered what greater football minds thought of this game.
I’m not a fan of anyone who currently does the NFL games on any network, save for Jon Gruden and Mike Tirico, so I decided to localize my search and call up the guys in charge of our area’s high school football teams.
Unsurprisingly, none of the coaches predicted the game would be a historic blowout.
Just as I did, Durant coach Mike Gottman went to a friend’s house for the big game and enjoyed the food. But, in the middle of the third quarter, he was satisfied enough to leave, go back home and watch the end of the fourth there.
“I was pulling for Peyton Manning to get it done, but I thought the Seahawks would get it done,” Gottman says. “They’re a really good defensive team, and they make a lot of things happen on special teams. They got on a lot of loose balls, got a lot of turnovers. I liked the way they were creating points, even right off the bat, and having Percy Harvin back really helped them out, too. They just lined up and played a great football game. I didn’t really predict the score — you just never know what’s going to happen in the Super Bowl. I thought it would be like 27-24, or something like that.”
Strawberry Crest coach John Kelly made his Super Bowl experience a big family event and also counted Denver out in the middle of the third quarter.
“Listen: If somebody tells you they expected a 40-point victory, they’re probably blowing smoke in your face,” Kelly says. “I was hoping for Peyton Manning to solidify his place in history, even though it’s already been done, but it doesn’t surprise me that Seattle won. They’re massive! Their defense is just massive at every position — matchup nightmares in size, speed, everything. I think it kind of snowballed on (Denver): I don’t think they’d have the same outcome every single time they played each other. As for the score, I thought mid-20s for both teams.”
And Plant City coach Wayne Ward, who watched just over half of the game with family, was the only Seahawks fan of the bunch.
“I thought it was going to be a better game,” Ward said. “I knew the Seattle defense was good, but I thought Denver would put up a better fight. I was done at halftime, after the Bruno Mars performance. After the second-half kickoff, I said, ‘Oh, this is gonna get ugly,’ and I turned it off. I thought it would be, like, a 28-24 Seattle win, and not such a total domination of a great quarterback in Peyton Manning. They just got after him a little bit — he was real jittery in the pocket. My hat goes off to the Seattle Seahawks — they wanted it more. And Kam Chancellor, who graduated from Virginia Tech, he got his Super Bowl ring, so that was good for me.”