The 2013 Seattle Seahawks were one of the most hyped teams in NFL history. But so were the team they defeated in the Denver Broncos. The limitless potential the 2012 team showed was transitioned to the 2013 squad. But only one side of that potential will be compared to the greats in its category, entering football lore.
That side is the self-dubbed Legion Of Boom itself: the defense. And in my honest opinion, the 2013 Seahawks defense could end up as the greatest in NFL history.
You’d think that I would stop there and leave a one-sided opinion on the table for you to either agree or disagree. But I’m not. I want to objectively compare this D to the best. To that end, we will be comparing this year’s Super Bowl champion defense to the all-time greats: the 85 Bears, the 00 Ravens, and the 02 Bucs, who all ranked #1 in total defense for their respective Super Bowl champion winning seasons.
In terms of points given up, the 85 Chicago Bears gave up 198 points and 4135 yards, while the 00 Baltimore Ravens gave up 165 points and 3967 yards, and the 02 Tampa Bay Buccaneers gave up 196 points for 4044 yards. The 2013 Seahawks gave up 238 points for 4378 yards in their championship season.
Granted, the Seahawks pale in comparison to their three counterparts in terms of points and yards given up, let’s check the team that each faced in the Super Bowl. The 85 New England Patriots were ranked 9th in total offense and 10th in points scored. The 00 New York Giants were ranked 13th in offense and 15th in points scored. The 02 Oakland Raiders were 1st in total offense and 2nd in points scored.
And the 2013-14 Denver Broncos? They ranked 1st in total offense AND points scored. This wasn’t just any #1 ranked offense – this was a record setting offense, one of the greatest ever. It was an offense led by an already legendary future Hall of Fame quarterback who ages like wine; Peyton Manning himself. This team set records in total offense, single season touchdowns, and total yards in a single season.
Denver put up 7317 total yards on offense, including 5444 yards passing. They scored 606 points in the regular season and averaged 457.9 yards per game, 340.3 yards per game, and 37.9 points per game.
In the Super Bowl against the Seahawks, we saw none of those impressive stats. Denver had 306 total yards on offense, 279 of them were for passing. They scored a total of 8 points, which only came in the 3rd quarter on a Manning-Demaryius Thomas 14-yard touchdown (and a 2-point conversion pass to Wes Welker). It was hard to believe this was the same team that dominated the season otherwise.
But the biggest reason why I think the 2013 Seahawks had the best defense is that they weren’t supposed to win the Super Bowl, let alone by a landslide. This was supposed to be a Super Bowl victory for Manning and the Broncos, a 2nd ring for the 37-year-old quarterback, one that would forever cement his legacy above Tom Brady and possibly Joe Montana as the greatest quarterback to play the game. Denver was 2.5-point favorites, and this was expected to be a close game.
And it was a close game, at least in the first quarter when it was 8-0. But the Seahawks gave the Broncos zero chances. This was a game that was literally over on the first play (a bad snap led to a safety, giving Seattle the first 2 points of the game and the fastest score in Super Bowl history). Seattle took full advantage of all the small flaws the Broncos had all season that weren’t fully realized until Sunday night: inconsistent receivers, a poor special teams unit, and a gassed secondary line.
Seattle didn’t just beat the #1 offense in NFL history; they murdered them, ripped all of the skin and flesh away and left them for the vultures. The final score was 43-8, the largest victory for a Super Bowl underdog in the history of the NFL. The 2013 Denver Broncos, the greatest team to never win a Super Bowl, was no match for an all star cast of Richard Sherman, Super Bowl MVP Malcolm Smith, Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas, etc. on defense – again, The Legion of Boom.
But Seattle wasn’t supposed to put this game away, locking it up and burning all the evidence of it existing. The Seahawks defense was only good because of its ridiculously unfair home field advantage: the 12th man. None of the Seahawks staff had Super Bowl experience, they were overrated, and they were going to get crushed by true professionals. Their QB Russell Wilson was in his second year, and was selected in the 3rd round of the NFL Draft. It was time for such an overrated roster to pack their bags and go home, maybe come back better the next year, or waste away a so called excellent 2013 season.
Or so we thought. Seattle proved each and every one of their doubters wrong. And they didn’t just prove us wrong; they proved us wrong with THE greatest defense in NFL history.
(Stats via ESPN.com and pro-football-reference.com)
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