The Denver Broncos defense showed improvement in their overtime loss to Seattle, but they were run over in extra time. That's why the Broncos lost, unless you buy the Denver Post's argument that the nefarious coin toss was truly the deciding factor.
"The winner of a classic football game should never be determined by pure, dumb luck," Mark Kiszla wrote. "Unlike the Super Bowl, the only difference Sunday between the Broncos and Seattle was a flip of the coin."
This is insanity. The Broncos' defense prevented the Seahawks from scoring a touchdown on eight consecutive drives in regulation. Do it once more in overtime, and Denver gets the ball back. The Broncos gave up only two touchdowns in 14 drives before the extra possession. If an offense played its absolute worst in overtime, we'd say that they choked. (In this case, we'll just give credit to the Seahawks offense for coming through under pressure, like Peyton Manning did in his final drive.)
"We felt like we were the better team," Broncos defensive tackle Terrance Knighton said.
Even Manning nearly got sucked into the storyline for a brief moment, before realizing that it's a loser's lament.
"It puts a premium on the coin toss," Manning said. "I called tails at the beginning of the game, and went with it again in overtime. It was heads, and it proved to be a significant call. But that's the way it is. And you'd like to not leave it to that, leave it to get to that situation."
The Broncos' offense averaged fewer yards-per-play on Sunday than they did in their Super Bowl loss. The team's running game averaged under 2 yards per carry. The offense punted on eight straight drives. Montee Ball lost a fumble on his first carry. Peyton Manning threw an interception on the team's penultimate drive of the game. But none of that mattered because it was the ever-important coin flip that made the difference.
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