JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Peyton Manning’s story is ripped straight from an after-school special. The legend confronts doubt, his longtime employer fires him, he undergoes multiple neck surgeries, and he leads his new team to a Super Bowl.
The only things missing are a few puppies and an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World before the credits roll and the screen fades to black.
And then there are the Seattle Seahawks. Their movie is little more edgy, and if Marshawn Lynch’s iTunes account provides the soundtrack, it’s X-rated. They are a collection of undrafted, overlooked reclamation projects.
They play angry. They play with a foot on the pedal. All red line, all the time. “The Fast and the Physical.”
This game pits the league’s top-ranked offense — and most prolific ever — vs. the best defense. For the past week the Seahawks have been asked how they are going to deal with Manning. Their response? He has to deal with us.
“Everything in football works both ways, you know?” Seahawks safety Earl Thomas said. “I don’t think he has faced a defense like ours this season. With our personnel, we have so many guys who can impact the game in their own way. Peyton knows the type of players we have.”
For Manning, much is at stake. Namely his legacy, talk he understandably dismisses as something reserved “for when you are 70 years old.” Win a second Super Bowl with his regular-season numbers, and he’s in the conversation as the greatest ever. The Seahawks, too, are staring down the barrel of history. All defenses of their ilk — the Pittsburgh Steelers’ “Steel Curtain,” Buddy Ryan’s 1985 Chicago Bears, the 2000 Baltimore Ravens — won the big game, forever protecting their reputations as firewalls. The Seahawks’ “Legion of Boom” wants to join that group.
“We know we are good,” defensive lineman Michael Bennett said. “We have to do what we’ve done. Now is not the time to change things.”
While the Seahawks have a superior pass rush, and a deep defensive line that allows them to rotate players, their strength is at the back end, where they blanket opposing receivers.
In talking to multiple Seahawks over the past two weeks, peeks at their game plan emerge. They are prepared to stay with their basic sets against the Broncos, pressing and playing man-to-man on the outside, while loading the “box” with seven defenders to not only shut down the running game but pressure Manning up the middle. This strategy leaves the middle of the field as the soft underbelly. Manning has torched teams with vertical routes to tight end Julius Thomas or on short rub/pick crossing plays this season.
It’ll be up to Seattle’s linebackers to disrupt those plays.
“We are going to hit them. Who? His receivers. Anyone who comes through the middle,” said linebacker Bobby Wagner, who calls the Seahawks’ defensive audibles and leads the team in tackles. “There are certain formations they will line up in when we know what’s coming. We have to talk, especially if we are in man coverage. But watching them on film, I don’t think teams hit them on the picks. When they show up, we are going to hit them.”
While Manning hasn’t attacked a defense as good as Seattle’s this season, the Seahawks have not encountered anyone like Manning. The Drew Brees argument gets advanced, but he was awful on the road this season and doesn’t get the ball out as quickly as Manning. Many of Manning’s throws are released in less than two seconds, which is not enough time to pressure him.
Manning will use “trips” formations with three receivers on one side of the field, forcing the Seahawks to make uncomfortable choices. If all-pro cornerback Richard Sherman takes away Demaryius Thomas, then a nickel back such as Walter Thurmond will be left to deal with Julius Thomas or wide receiver Eric Decker. Plus, the Seattle corners will tip their hands if they line up directly over the receivers, giving Manning an easy presnap read. The Seahawks will camouflage a bit, switching in and out of zone, or playing zone on one side of the field and man on the other.
But they don’t change much. They are more about punching than bobbing and weaving.
This means it is paramount that Bennett, who stays fresh from Seattle’s liberal defensive line rotation, and Red Bryant get Manning off his spot with pressure up the middle.
“He has to feel us, to feel the heat,” Bennett said.
When Manning has struggled, which isn’t often, he’s been forced to move his feet and hold on to the ball longer he wants. An extra second swings the advantage back to the Seahawks’ Legion of Boom secondary to make a game-changing play.
Fast vs. fast and physical.
“This is the ultimate challenge, playing a future Hall of Famer. A first-ballot guy,” Bryant said. “He has weapons everywhere. What better defense to take this on than us?”
Troy E. Renck: trenck@denverpost.com or twitter.com/troyrenck
