Super Bowl XLVIII

• 1. Introduction

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  Super Bowl XLVIII began with a sound no one expected: the crack of a bad snap, and the ball skittering past Peyton Manning into the end zone. Just 12 seconds into the game, Seattle defensive end Cliff Avril had tackled running back Knowshon Moreno for a safety, and the Seahawks led. That opening moment set the tone for everything that followed on the 2nd of February, 2014, at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. By the time it was over, the Seattle Seahawks had beaten the Denver Broncos 43-8, the largest margin of victory by an underdog in Super Bowl history. The questions worth sitting with are not just how Seattle dominated so completely, but what made Denver so dangerous coming in, what made this game so unusual before a single snap was taken, and why the halftime audience that night set a record that stood until the following year.

• 2. Two Historic Teams

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  Denver's 2013 offense was, by almost any measure, the most productive in NFL history. The Broncos scored 606 points during the regular season, the highest total any team had ever produced. Quarterback Peyton Manning, in his 16th NFL season and his second year in Denver, set new league records with 5,477 passing yards and 55 touchdown passes. His 450 completions ranked second all-time. Four Denver receivers caught at least 10 touchdown passes each, a first in league history. Pro Bowl receiver Demaryius Thomas led the group with 92 catches for 1,430 yards and 14 scores, while tight end Julius Thomas added 65 catches and 12 touchdowns. Kicker Matt Prater ranked first in the NFL in field goal percentage, hitting 25 of 26 attempts, and his 64-yard field goal against Tennessee in Week 14 broke a record that had stood for 44 years.

  Seattle's 2013 defense was built around what the team called the Legion of Boom. The Seahawks allowed the fewest yards per game (273.6) and the fewest points of any team in the league, while also recording the most takeaways with 39. Cornerback Richard Sherman led the NFL with eight interceptions. Free safety Earl Thomas made five interceptions and 105 tackles. Strong safety Kam Chancellor contributed 99 tackles and three interceptions. On the defensive line, Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett each recorded eight sacks. Linebacker Bobby Wagner led the team in combined tackles with 120. The Seahawks were the first team since the 1985 Chicago Bears to lead the league simultaneously in fewest yards allowed, fewest points allowed, and most takeaways. The last time a Super Bowl matched the top-ranked offense against the top-ranked defense was Super Bowl XXV, 23 years earlier.

  Seattle's offense, though overshadowed by Denver's numbers, was also formidable. Second-year quarterback Russell Wilson, a third-round draft pick, completed 63.1 percent of his passes for 3,357 yards and 26 touchdowns against just nine interceptions, posting a passer rating of 101.2. He was the first quarterback in NFL history to post a triple-digit passer rating in each of his first two seasons. Running back Marshawn Lynch rushed for 1,257 yards and 12 touchdowns, while receiver Golden Tate returned 51 punts for 585 yards, second-best in the league.

• 3. Breaking New Ground

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  MetLife Stadium sits in East Rutherford, New Jersey, at the Meadowlands Sports Complex, and it presented the NFL with a series of firsts. Super Bowl XLVIII was the first championship game played outdoors in a cold-weather city. Every previous Super Bowl held in a northern stadium had taken place indoors. The temperature at kickoff was 49 degrees Fahrenheit, which made it only the third-coldest Super Bowl despite the fears about winter weather. For comparison, the coldest outdoor Super Bowl across the first 47 games had been Super Bowl VI at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans on the 16th of January, 1972, with a kickoff temperature of 39 degrees.

  Efforts to bring the Super Bowl to the New York area had a complicated history stretching back to the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Both the New York City and Washington, D.C. business communities discussed the idea of hosting a Super Bowl as a symbol of national recovery. New York City ultimately submitted a bid in 2005, and the NFL voted on the 23rd of March, 2005, to award New York the rights to host Super Bowl XLIV, contingent on a proposed West Side Stadium in Manhattan being completed by 2008. That stadium was never built. In August 2005, after New York state officials declined to approve $400 million for the project, the NFL revoked the city's hosting rights. The bid that ultimately succeeded came from MetLife Stadium, which was awarded the game on the 26th of May, 2010, at the NFL owners' meetings in Irving, Texas, after four rounds of voting that eliminated South Florida in the second round and Tampa only at the end.

• 4. Fastest Collapse in Super Bowl History

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  Twelve seconds into the game, Cliff Avril tackled Knowshon Moreno in the end zone for a safety, giving the Seahawks the fastest score to open a game in Super Bowl history. The previous record had been held by Devin Hester's kickoff return at the opening of Super Bowl XLI, seven years earlier. Three possessions later, linebacker Kam Chancellor intercepted Manning at the Broncos' 37-yard line. Seattle responded with Marshawn Lynch's 1-yard touchdown run, and the score was 15-0 in the first quarter. The Seahawks became only the fifth team in Super Bowl history to score on their first three offensive possessions.

  Late in the first half, with Denver finally moving the ball, Avril hit Manning as he attempted a pass and turned it into a soft floater that Malcolm Smith intercepted and returned 69 yards for a touchdown. The score was 22-0 at halftime. That shutout lead broke the previous Super Bowl halftime record of 20-0, set by San Francisco over Cincinnati in Super Bowl XVI. Manning had thrown two interceptions in the half without getting his team on the scoreboard for the first time all season. The 22-point deficit was the largest Denver had faced all year.

  The second half opened even more badly for the Broncos. Matt Prater kicked short to prevent a big return, but Percy Harvin caught the ball in the air at the 12-yard line and ran 87 yards for a touchdown. That score came 12 seconds into the second half, mirroring exactly the time it had taken Seattle to score the opening safety. On Denver's next possession, Demaryius Thomas caught a 23-yard pass but cornerback Byron Maxwell knocked the ball loose, and Malcolm Smith recovered it. An unnecessary roughness penalty against Orlando Franklin added 15 yards, and Seattle eventually scored again to go up 36-0. The 36-0 lead was the largest shutout lead in Super Bowl history; the previous record was 24-0, shared by Miami over Minnesota in Super Bowl VIII and Washington over Buffalo in Super Bowl XXVI.

  Denver's lone score came on the final play of the third quarter, a 14-yard touchdown pass from Manning to Demaryius Thomas, followed by a two-point conversion catch by Wes Welker. Zach Miller then recovered Prater's onside kick attempt, and Seattle scored once more to close at 43-8. The Seahawks set a Super Bowl record by making the first seven scores of the game; the previous record had been four. They also set a record for holding a lead continuously for the longest time in Super Bowl history: 59 minutes and 48 seconds.

• 5. Malcolm Smith and the Defense

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  Malcolm Smith was named Super Bowl Most Valuable Player after his 69-yard interception return for a touchdown, a fumble recovery, and nine tackles. His interception, forced when Avril hit Manning mid-throw, was the play that turned a tight defensive game into a rout. Smith was not the only Seahawk to have an extraordinary afternoon. Percy Harvin, who had been injured for much of the season, played only a few snaps but rushed for 45 yards and scored on that 87-yard kickoff return, which was the only touchdown of his season. Wilson, for his part, finished 18 of 25 for 206 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions, a passer rating of 123.1.

  Manning completed 34 of 49 passes for 280 yards, with one touchdown and two interceptions. His 34 completions tied a Super Bowl record. His top target, Demaryius Thomas, caught 13 passes for 118 yards, which set a new Super Bowl record for most receptions in a game. The Broncos' record-setting offense managed only 306 total yards, with just 27 yards on the ground. That was nearly 30 points below Denver's regular-season scoring average. The Broncos committed four turnovers; the Seahawks committed none. Following the game, Denver fell to 2-5 in Super Bowls, and Manning's career playoff record dropped to 11-12, with a 1-2 mark in Super Bowls. Head coach Pete Carroll, with his second national championship at USC behind him, became only the third head coach to win both an NCAA Division I-A national championship and a Super Bowl, joining Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer.

• 6. Broadcast and Audience Records

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  Fox televised the game in the United States with Joe Buck calling play-by-play, Troy Aikman as color analyst, and Pam Oliver and Erin Andrews reporting from the sidelines. The broadcast drew 111.5 million average viewers, making it briefly the most-watched television event in American history, surpassing the 111.3 million who had watched Super Bowl XLVI in 2012. That record would itself be broken the following year by Super Bowl XLIX.

  For the first time in Super Bowl history, Fox Deportes provided a dedicated Spanish-language telecast of the game. John Laguna called the play-by-play and Brady Poppinga served as color analyst. The broadcast drew 561,000 viewers, making it the highest-rated Spanish-language cable telecast in the United States outside of soccer. Fox set the price for a 30-second advertisement at $4 million, matching the rate CBS had charged for the previous year's game. Fox announced on the 4th of December that all ad inventory had sold out. Budweiser's spot titled "Puppy Love" was named the best ad of the game by USA Today's Super Bowl Ad Meter. A Coca-Cola spot featuring people from diverse backgrounds singing "America the Beautiful" in multiple languages drew sharp criticism from some political commentators and praise from others.

  The halftime show featured Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Mars performed "Locked Out of Heaven", "Treasure", "Runaway Baby", and "Just the Way You Are", among others, while the Red Hot Chili Peppers joined him for "Give It Away". The show drew 115.3 million viewers, surpassing the 114 million who had watched Madonna perform two years earlier to set a new record for the most-watched halftime performance in Super Bowl history. It later emerged that the music had been pre-recorded, as had been standard practice for years. Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers noted on Twitter that every band at the Super Bowl over the prior decade had performed to a previously recorded track, describing it as NFL policy. The audience was incorporated into the show through hats embedded with LEDs, transforming the crowd into what organizers described as the largest human video screen ever assembled, with more than 80,000 pixels of light.