Imagine , if you will, defense winning Super Bowl XLVIII Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
Sounds feasible, doesn’t it? The Seahawks were, after all, the No. 1-ranked defense in the NFL this season.
But now imagine the Denver defense — not Seattle’s heralded group and not Broncos prolific quarterback Peyton Manning — being the difference in the game and the reason the Broncos are hoisting the Lombardi Trophy into the chilly New Jersey night sky.
If you don’t see that happening, you probably have not been paying a lot of attention to the Broncos lately. Perhaps you missed them locking down the Patriots’ running game and suffocating Tom Brady’s passing game in their dominant AFC Championship win.
You also likely did not follow their previous three games — two regular season and one divisional playoff — either.
After allowing an average of 26.6 points per game in the season’s first 14 games, Denver’s defense has allowed an average of 15 points in its last four.
In the first 14 games, the Broncos allowed an average of 105.4 rushing yards and 266.1 passing yards per game. In the last four, those average numbers have been reduced to 70 and 198.5, respectively.
You will not hear any bombastic comments or bold predictions from the Broncos players because that is not how they operate; they closely follow the personality of their affable, even-keeled head coach, John Fox.
But having been around these players for a third consecutive week, I can tell you there is an underlying “don’t-forget-about-us’’ mentality permeating the Broncos’ defensive meeting room. And if the Broncos win the game, you can bet John Elway’s sizable financial empire you’ll hear chatter from the winner’s locker room about how the Broncos defense was overlooked.
The more they hear the constant extolling of the Seattle defense, and the more they hear the only way Denver wins games is because of Manning and his prolific corps of skill position players, the more it drives the Denver defense.
In a compelling twist, the catalyst for their defensive surge was the Broncos’ most recent loss, which came against the Chargers, who are coached by former Denver offensive coordinator Mike McCoy.
“I think it was everyone involved on defense realizing what kind of position we were in and what we could possibly do, and we were going for it,’’ Broncos linebacker Paris Lenon said.
“It was that Week 15 game against San Diego when they came out with an intensity that we could not match that day,’’ Broncos defensive tackle Terrance Knighton said. “They were in playoff mode already. We knew we were going to be in the playoffs, but weren’t in the playoffs yet.
“That’s not something you can just turn on once the playoffs start. I think this team learned that from last year [when it lost to Baltimore in the divisional round]. You can’t just show up and think you’re going to be ready to play. It’s something you have to build into.
“We were inconsistent early on, but we wanted to peak at the right time,’’ Knighton continued. “We wanted to play our best football at the right time.’’
The Seahawks have allowed an average of 16 points in their two playoff games; the Broncos have allowed an average of 16 ¹/₂ .
If Denver can keep Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch to 75 or fewer rushing yards, they know the Seahawks will have a difficult time scoring enough points to keep up with Manning and Co.
The Broncos, who held New England to just 64 rushing yards in the AFC Championship, faced five teams during the regular season that finished in the league’s top 10 in rushing and they won four of those games.
The Chargers, in that Dec. 12 win over Denver, were the only team to have a back rush for more than 100 yards on the Broncos’ defense, when Ryan Mathews ran for 127 on 29 carries.
Not coincidentally, the defense conducted a players-only meeting after the San Diego game and the unit has been in lockdown since.
“I felt like it was the right time for it,” Knighton said of the meeting. “I said, ‘If anything needs to be said, now’s the time to let it on out.’ ”
So they did, and here they are — the least talked-about element to this game, but perhaps the difference-makers when all is said and done.