I liked what Kevin Clark wrote about the Hawks plan to contain Manning:

"But a review of the game film shows that Manning's struggles were destined from the start. Seattle's strategy focused on containing Denver's vaunted short passing game, exposing the Broncos as a team with surprisingly few tricks in their offensive bag.

The Seahawks gladly let Manning break the Super Bowl record for completions. He connected on 34 of his 49 passes. The hulking Seattle defense held those passes to an average of 8.2 yards per completion, the third-worst mark in Super Bowl history, according to Stats LLC. The plan was simple: Let Manning have his short passes, but make sure they stay short.

The Seahawks have a few trademark moves: They pressure the quarterback with their endless parade of talented defensive linemen, and their oversize cornerbacks push receivers out near the sideline. This leaves large spaces in the middle of the field, where safeties Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor wipe out receivers that come through.

What the Seahawks did on Sunday was take that standard operating procedure and make tweaks to neutralize Manning.

The first rule of facing Manning is don't blitz. According to Pro Football Focus, there were 184 instances this season when brave, foolish souls blitzed Manning; he devastated them in response, compiling a quarterback rating above 100 in those situations.

The point of blitzing—that is, sending defenders other than linemen to rush the quarterback—is to get the quarterback uncomfortable, gambling that he won't be able to find the hole in the defense that was created when the blitzing player left his post. That doesn't work on Manning. The Seahawks knew this, so they tried something else.

On Denver's first third down of the game, Seattle sent only three pass rushers. The rest dropped into coverage. This is almost unheard of in the NFL. The play resulted in a short three-yard completion that forced a punt. In another critical instance, the Seahawks sent the standard four pass rushers—yet defensive end Cliff Avril got to Manning anyway, hitting his arm as he threw. Because linebacker Malcolm Smith wasn't blitzing, he was there to intercept the floating pass and return it for a backbreaking touchdown.

In fact, on some plays, the Seahawks would even drop their linemen into coverage, even though they weigh around 300 pounds. A typical play saw them backing straight up and standing towards the middle of the field and giving Manning yet another (large) object to avoid. The three-man rush could still apply pressure, however.

This was the theme throughout the night. The Seahawks wanted to keep every play in front of them to prevent the Denver wide receivers from executing their blocking schemes to break off big gains after the catch—the Broncos' trademark."

At first I was concerned when I'd see Manning complete those short passes, but the Hawks' plan wasn't to prevent those pass completions. They just whomped the receivers ass onto the field where he caught it for small gains.