5 Things You Need to Know for Monday January 20th

1.  Our Super Bowl is set.  The Denver Broncos will face the Seattle Seahawks. This will be a tremendous matchup between the best offense and best defense in the league.  I am looking forward to Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, and Earl Thomas battle the likes of Demaryius Thomas, Wes Welker, Julius Thomas, and Eric Decker.

Seattle's pass rush will need to be on top of their game.  Peyton Manning's jersey was awfully clean yesterday against the Patriots, and if that happens in 13 days look for the Broncos to win comfortably.

2.  The Seahawks/49ers game was thrilling.  It had it all: emotional swings, big plays, good defenses, and stud quarterbacks.  Seattle's defense forced three turnovers in the fourth quarter that ultimately won them a very evenly-played game.  Colin Kaepernick made two ill-advised throws in the fourth quarter.  On his first interception he just misread the play, and Kam Chancellor undercut Anquan Boldin's route.  On his second one he decided to challenge Richard Sherman one-on-one, which is rarely a good idea.  The ball eventually ended up in the hands of Malcolm smith.

3.  Peyton Manning is the man.  The Broncos handled the Patriots 26-16, and Manning threw for 400 yards on 32/43 passing.  It is hard for my analysis to go much deeper than that.  Manning's weapons and offensive line played excellent as well. Hats off to Denver's defense too; they came up with some big stops in the first three quarters.

4.  Richard Sherman went off on Michael Crabtree in his postgame interview.

This is one of those things that everyone has an opinion about, and there were a lot media people on their moral soapboxes last night.  I didn't have a problem with it.  The guy had achieved the biggest athletic feat in his career less than five minutes ago, he has a right to be excited.  He was verbally and physically challenged with a Super Bowl berth on the line, and he made the play of the game.  Also, would we rather have athletes repeating the same tired cliches in postgame interviews, or do we want guys to show emotion and speak their minds?  If we want the latter, we need to stop vilifying guys when they do it.

5. Overall it was a really good weekend for Michigan teams.  The Red Wings and Pistons won Saturday (although the Wings benefited from a huge break), MSU hoops handled Illinois, and Michigan's basketball team got a huge win at #3 Wisconsin.