The Seattle Seahawks ‘Legion of Boom’ had one of the most dominant Super Bowl performances in NFL history

The Seahawks’ dominant 2013 season led to a Super Bowl matchup against Peyton Manning’s Broncos

The 2013 Seattle Seahawks defense were the best in the NFL. The team went 13-3 in the regular season that year, winning the NFC West and earning a first-round bye in the playoffs.

After the 16-game regular season came to an end, Seattle ranked number one defensively. They’d allowed just 14.6 points per game, and their 177.5 passing yards allowed per game was comfortably the best record in football that year.

Their defense was led by an all-time secondary, now regarded as one of the best in NFL history. The Legion of Boom was punishing, not allowing any opponent to gain an easy yard on a single down.

The secondary consisted of cornerbacks Richard Sherman and Byron Maxwell, and safeties Earl Thomas III and Kam Chancellor, often known as ‘Bam Bam Kam’.

Few secondaries have ever hit harder than the Legion of Boom, hence the name. Richard Sherman is one of the most aggressive cornerbacks the league has ever seen, and while he talked more trash than anybody else, he backed it up on the field.

That said, it wasn’t just the secondary. They had Michael Bennett, Brandon Mebane, and Cliff Avril rushing the passer upfront, while Bobby Wagner commanded the unit from middle linebacker.

The Seahawks led the NFL in forced fumbles per game, at 1.7 on average. They held six teams to fewer than 10 points in the 16-game regular season, which included a total shutout 23-0 win over the New York Giants in Week 15.

That season, the Legion of Boom and company averaged 2.4 takeaways per game. They had 28 interceptions as a team, led by Richard Sherman with eight, followed by Earl Thomas III with five.

Seattle beat Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints and Colin Kaepernick and the San Francisco 49ers at home in the playoffs, setting up a Super Bowl matchup with Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos.

Seahawks Legion of Boom dismantled Peyton Manning’s Broncos on their way to Super Bowl XLVIII title

For context, the Denver Broncos team that Seattle came up against was the highest-scoring offense in football. Peyton Manning and the Broncos had averaged 36.4 points per game that season, almost 10 points more than any other team in the league.

Denver had two receivers reach 1,000 yards comfortably. Demaryius Thomas led with 1,430 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns, and Eric Decker was a close second with 1,288 yards and 11 touchdowns of his own.

Tight end Julius Thomas caught 12 TDs that year, and Wes Welker had 10.

This was one of the highest-volume passing offenses in NFL history, with Manning throwing a career-high 55 touchdowns on the season.

Super Bowl XLVIII set a matchup between the league’s best defense and the best offense. Unfortunately for Peyton Manning and company, they never stood a chance.

The Broncos started horribly, botching the opening snap into their own end zone for a safety. They immediately handed the lead to Seattle, and that set the tone for the game.

The first quarter was largely a defensive battle. The Seahawks converted two field goals to make it 8-0 on the night, and the Broncos were looking to get their high-flying pass game going any way they could.

Late in the first, Peyton Manning tried to find Julius Thomas over the middle, but threw his pass too high and saw it picked off by Kam Chancellor. The Seahawks converted that turnover into a Marshawn Lynch touchdown and took a healthy lead.

The game was blown wide open just before halftime. Manning had a pass tipped, and linebacker Malcolm Smith was sitting underneath it. He flew back the other way for six, and the Seahawks went in at halftime with a 22-0 lead, having shut out the best offense in football in the first half of the Super Bowl.

Things got worse for the Broncos the moment they came back out of the tunnel, when Percy Harvin returned the opening kick for a touchdown. The Seahawks held a 29-point lead, and the Broncos now had to try to find 30 points, a total the Legion of Boom and company had only allowed once that year.

The scoreline meant Manning and company were forced to throw downfield against the toughest defense to throw against, and Seattle receiver Jermaine Kearse had made it 36-0 before they could score a point.

Manning did eventually convert with a touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas, but by then the Broncos knew they were beaten.

Seattle completed one of the greatest Super Bowl performances of all time, surging to a 43-8 win, capped by a Doug Baldwin touchdown in the fourth quarter.

After the game, Peyton Manning was asked if it was an embarrassing loss, to which he replied:

“It’s not embarrassing at all. I would never use that word. The word ’embarrassing’ is an insulting word, to tell you the truth.”

He said, “We played a great team. We needed to play really well in order to win, and we didn’t come anywhere close to that.”

Seattle could have, and should have, won it all again the following season

The following season the Seattle Seahawks were right back in the Super Bowl once again, with the perfect blend of offense led by a young Russell Wilson, paired with the Legion of Boom era defense.

The Seahawks led just about every statistical category once again that season, but this time came up against Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and the New England Patriots.

That was the year of the incredible Malcolm Butler interception at the goal line, which was the beginning of the end of the Seattle Seahawks era.

Pete Carroll once said in an interview with Richard Sherman, that if they’d won it that year, they’d have won it the year afterwards too. He believed the team was so good that they’d have three-peated, but they were so hurt by the Super Bowl loss against the Patriots that it led to the team’s demise.

Still, the Seahawks era in the 2010s is one of the greatest in Super Bowl history. A team that built its identity on having a truly elite secondary, who dared you to try and throw on them.

Few teams have ever had success that way, and none more so than the Legion of Boom led Seattle Seahawks.