When a game ends with a score like 43-8, it’s never about one play. But if you did want to identify one play that demonstrated what Super Bowl XLVIII was all about, you might go with Kam Chancellor’s tackle on the Broncos’ first pass.
That pass, a completion from Peyton Manning to Demaryius Thomas, was nothing out of the ordinary for Denver’s offense. But while the Broncos have been racking up yardage all season with passes from Manning to Thomas, this time Thomas was sent flying backward by a vicious but clean hit by Chancellor, the Seattle safety who came in like he was shot out of a cannon and laid the wood to Thomas.
“You can tell they really wanted to run crossing routes, but on the first one they met Kam Chancellor,” Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner said after the game.
Chancellor was a big part of a big defensive effort by the Seahawks — an effort that may cement Seattle’s status as the greatest pass defense in NFL history.