This year, the circumstance has arisen where the No. 1 and No. 2 team in each division are playing each other to get into the Super Bowl. The No. 1 Denver Broncos and Peyton Manning will battle the No. 2 New England Patriots and Tom Brady in the American Football Conference (AFC) title game, while the near-perfect No. 1 Panthers will face off against a formidable defense in the No. 2 Arizona Cardinals. While the latter game is definitely exciting in its own right, I’m more concerned with the former.
The convergence of two legendary quarterbacks gives me goose bumps. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have squared off countless times in their career. However this matchup remains unique. Peyton has not been his usual self recently.
Whether a result of age, injury or both, Peyton has slipped. The Broncos have taken a different route than that of the typical team led by Peyton Manning.
While offense is always important, the Broncos have relied heavily on their defense to win them games.
The Patriots seem like an unstoppable force at this point, but the Broncos were one of few teams to defeat them this year and are up for the challenge again.
Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have played each other 16 times prior to this matchup, and Tom seems to dominate the matchup with a 10-6 record. However their record is even in the playoffs at 2-2, and Peyton actually holds the upper hand at 2-1 in AFC championship games. I predict that in this matchup, Peyton will play a decent game, but it will be their defense that leads them to victory over Tom Brady.
The Denver defense is like something I haven’t seen since the 2001 Ravens defense led by Ray Lewis and Ed Reed. In an interview before the game, Von Miller, one of the defensive linemen for the Broncos, said that if they sack Tom Brady twice, then they will win the game.
I wholeheartedly agree, because although Tom Brady seems indestructible, I believe he gets rattled when he gets hit.
I began writing this article before the game occurred, and it seems as though my predictions were correct. Tom Brady was hit 20 times during the game. 20. Times. That is almost unheard of. That’s the most a quarterback has been hit all season.
He gets rattled when he gets lightly bumped. It was apparent from the beginning of the game that the Denver defense had gotten to his head. Peyton played alright, but he missed a couple of throws that could have been touchdowns.
This goes back to the Super Bowl of the 2013 NFL season, where Peyton Manning was on the other side of the coin. The game featured the best offense in the league in the Denver Broncos against the best defense in the league in the Seattle Seahawks. Although the saying goes that a good offense will always beat a good defense, the opposite was true that day.
The Seahawks dominated the game, and Peyton couldn’t catch any sort of break. This Super Bowl once again comes down to the best offense in the league in the Carolina Panthers against the best defense in the league in the Denver Broncos.
I believe the same result will occur come Super Bowl Sunday and that, against overwhelming odds, the Denver Broncos will prevail, get Peyton a Super Bowl ring and then he can finally retire in peace.
