NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should take that Pro Bowl concept of unconferencing and adapt it for the playoffs and Super Bowl.
It could help prevent a future blowout like Sunday’s 43-8 demolition of Denver by Seattle that had viewers taking their food and bathroom breaks during the game and hustling back to the couch in time for the commercials.
If this year’s postseason teams had been seeded without regard to AFC or NFC affiliation, perhaps the two best teams — Seattle and San Francisco — would’ve met Sunday.
Maybe you think it silly that pro football would follow suit of something done most often in high school sports … but is it more palatable that big-time college football will be seeding starting next season with its new playoff system? And — although it often doesn’t work out this way because 68 teams are involved — aren’t March Madness brackets designed to try to get the two best teams into the final, even if they come from the same conference?
True, Denver, with its 13-3 regular-season record matching that of Seattle, would’ve deserved a first or second seed. But the San Francisco 49ers or Carolina Panthers, both 12-4, could’ve been in the Broncos’ playoffs path and beaten them, probably saving us from a horribly lopsided Super Bowl.
Seattle edged Carolina 12-7 and split its two regular-season games against San Francisco. And the Seahawks-49ers NFC championship game two weeks ago was a classic that went down to the wire. I believed it then and the Super Bowl proved that those were the two best teams in the NFL this year.
IT DIDN’T take long for wags to speculate that Sunday’s result might spawn a sports event nearly as big as the Super Bowl: Floyd Mayweather finally fighting Manny Pacquiao, since it had been rumored that Mayweather wagered $10.4 million on the Broncos.
If that were true, Mayweather’s first desire might be to fight a different Manny — Ramirez, the center who snapped the ball into the end zone for a safety on the first play from scrimmage and set the tone.
It never got better for the Broncos, and no amount of pro-Peyton Manning sentimentality could change the fact that Seattle’s defensive front was way too much for Denver’s O-line. Things avalanched from there.
I like to watch the Super Bowl with my brother, Joe. This is the first time I can remember that we both had a fairly strong feeling about the same team winning going in. While I didn’t think it would be this thorough, I did have an inkling it might be something like when the Chicago Bears manhandled the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX, 28 years ago.
The Seahawks used a somewhat similar formula as the Bears of a run-based offense and dominant defense. That it dominated so thoroughly, in an era in which the passing game has been helped so much by the rules and against one of the all-time great quarterbacks, puts this Seattle unit right at the top of the all-time list of Super Bowl defenses.
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Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. Read his blog at staradvertiser.com/quickreads.
