I am Willing to Put Money on the Line that Denver Will not Win the Super Bowl

This sounds like an obvious reaction to last night's game, but in reality last night just solidified my feelings that I have had for some time.  It is more of a combination of things that I see, but it all adds up to Denver having a good season ending earlier than people expect. 

Most of this can be traced to weather and defense.  This is not one of those articles talking about Peyton not being able to play in the cold because that is not what it is.  I don't think Manning is as bad as people say in the cold, it is hard to find quarterbacks that are very good in the cold, period.  This article is not against Peyton as you need a team to win in the playoffs not one guy. He will still have some good games, but eventually he will need to play in the weather.  One way or the other, home field is going through Denver, New England or Cincinnati, all pretty cold place to play in January. In these situations, you need to have a good defense and a solid run game as the quarterback is somewhat voided as it is not easy to get comfortable in this weather.  In 2007, during Brady's magical year, you only have to look at the AFC championship against San Diego where it took the defense of New England to hold the Chargers to 4 field goals against Rivers, who was playing on a torn ACL.  Brady threw 3 picks that game and the leading receiver was Kevin Faulk, which means they were throwing very short passes that game.  They also got 125 yards out of Laurence Maroney, giving them good time possession as well.  Without a running game and a stout defense,  a torn ACL in the opposing quarterback doesn't hurt, the Patriots could have been 17-1 instead of 18-1.

This may be the best time to see Peyton do
some real work come January.

One thing we know for sure is that Denver's defense will not win them a game, which is why it is laughable to me that Jack Del Rio is being talked about as a potential head coach again.  He basically was given a job that he needs to hold teams to under 20 points on occasion and he can't even do that.  He should know the opposing teams game plans by now, they will try and run the ball to keep it away from Manning.  In the playoffs, it always gets tougher and all of the teams that are in the running to make the playoffs can beat this Denver team, especially when weather comes in to play as it is the great equalizer.  No quarterback is great in cold weather, they might have a good game here or there, but none of them exceed what they do on the reg.  Defenses can come at you more aggressively as the timing routes get messed up, leaving the quarterback to make tougher throws that take longer than usual.  Defenses can take away the short game and focus on the run and force Peyton to try to beat you with longer throws, which are riskier and not the way of the NFL anymore. 

They have a decent running game, but like an article posted earlier this year on ATP, losing Ryan Clady after losing Dan Koppen will definitely hurt them come playoff time.

http://allthingspigskin.blogspot.com/2013/09/not-enough-people-talking-about-bigger.html

 You only need to look to last night in a crucial point of the game, somebody coming through and getting to Peyton's arm leading to the pick that pretty much ended the game.  People may point to Welker not being in the lineup, but anybody who is going to complain about Andre Caldwell's stat line of 6 catches for 59 yards and 2 touchdowns after moving positions in a 3 day practice week does not really know football.

If they can get to the Super Bowl, then all bets would not be off as for the first time, the Super Bowl may be played in bad weather as it will be in New York City in February.  I don't think they get that far and this is probably the best chance a team like Cincinnati has of winning as their lack of an explosive passing game may not be exposed with all of the bad weather cities in the running of the playoff scene.  As I stated in the title, feel free to offer me some wagers as I will take any that I can afford.