Superbowl Sunday Arrives. Seattle Needs Magic, Denver Needs Man.

 My wife and I are playing this game right now, in the snow.  Whoever can
fit the helmet gets to be Denver.  Darn.....looks like I have to be Seattle.

Its the day before the game and we Bronco fans have been waiting much longer than two weeks for this game.  We've been waiting for over a year now.

Along this journey we have discovered some things about our team that a lot of people will not learn until Sunday.  The Seattle Seahawks have done the same thing in many ways, so the past few weeks have been a whole lot of getting to know characters that the NFL had no real clue about.

Richard Sherman stands out as the most obvious new face that we are getting to know but both teams are from cities that are common recipients of the infamous "east coast bias".  This bias is the reason that no one really knows these teams very well.  Even though both of these teams were preseason favorites to be here, national commentators who are paid to do this stuff have only begun to uncover the real story behind several pro bowl caliber players on both sides of the ball. Along the way, they have turned it into the Peyton Manning versus Richard Sherman bowl and have squeezed blood out of that proverbial turnip while adding the other players to the backdrop of this picture.

My wife is really good at saying the very thing that I was thinking (24 years of marriage) and today is no exception.  These past two weeks of media spin has spun our heads in circles.  When the 900th news report aired today offering another spin to this game she immediately declared "I am so tired of all of this that I am ready to go out back and just decide this game right here and right now".  They say that the two shall become one, and in this case they are exactly right.  If my big head didn't have to represent Seattle, I might have taken her up on that challenge.

Not that the Seahawks don't have a puncher's chance.  They have a defense that can win anytime and anywhere.  But they also have Sherman. History has a common trend in sports that doesn't allow many athletes, even great ones, to win it all on the first time out.  Magic Johnson is the first and the last in recent memory to become a champion right away and most consider him to be a recipient of both a great game and immense humility.  I'm just saying.

Sherman and the boys will need some of that magic to overcome the challenge that stands before them.  The Broncos will have man to carry them through.  Not, the man, I meant man defense.  All season long, the calling card of this defense has been our ability to play every team one on one if necessary. We have resorted to some zone looks as the season and the competition level progressed, but Denver is primarily a man to man team.

If necessary, and good run defense makes it necessary, we will play man to man and challenge Seattle to do the same on the other side of the ball.  If we pick apart their zone, they will be forced into adjustments that they have never had to make on defense because of so much speed and talent.  Sunday, they may have to go there.

When Denver proceeds to go there, which means wherever the game dictates, then I predict a resounding victory (37-17) and a lot of talk on Monday about those forgotten one's, the Denver defense.