It began the Monday morning after the NFC Championship. Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator, Dan Quinn and the rest of the coaches on his side of the ball, began poring over the hours and hours of game tape of the Denver Broncos. Preseason games, all 16 regular-season games, their two postseason games. All of it being mined carefully and meticulously for the slightest little detail to provide an advantage in Super Bowl XLVIII.

They found it. And it was from there that they constructed a defensive strategy to bludgeon the NFL’s best offense.

Where did they discover it? According to Quinn and multiple defensive players, the tell for Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning was in his eyes.

That if players were able to read which way his eyes moved to on the field, they would be able to find out which one of his receiving threats he was going to go to.

That was all the league’s best defense needed.

"We worked really hard last week at it," Quinn told The Star-Ledger in a private moment after the end of the game. "Every single day. We even poured over it on the plane ride over here."

Seattle strong safety Kam Chancellor put it more succinctly.

"It just allowed us to see the routes develop," Chancellor said. "We were able to jump a few routes. Just see everything that develops in front of you, playing off of Peyton’s eyes. He takes you right to the ball every time. He’s a great quarterback, but he definitely has tendencies and he takes you to the ball."

The results were surprising to some. Not to anyone within earshot of the Seattle locker room.

For the two weeks between the conference championship games and kickoff of last night’s game, many wondered how a defense — even one as consistently good as the Seahawks’ — would be able to stop an offense that shattered records as proficiently as Denver’s did.

They said Manning was unsackable.

They said there were four receiving threats that not even the Legion of Boom could handle.

"We loved hearing about the Denver offense," middle linebacker Bobby Wagner said with a wry smile. "Because after the game, we knew, ‘You’re going to hear a lot about Seattle’s defense.’"

Armed with Manning’s give-away in their back pockets, the Seahawks went to work. Against an offensive line which had only given up 20 sacks in 18 games this season, the Seattle assault began up front with the defensive line.

That produced one sack and four hits on Manning — and in turn, gave Seattle’s stellar secondary ample time to smother Denver’s cavalcade of talented receivers.

How efficient was the plan? Demaryius Thomas had a Super Bowl-record 13 catches — for only 118 yards.

"When we do things like that, we make good teams look normal," Chancellor said. "That’s what we did today."

Seahawks players said that even though their coaches analyzed hundreds of hours of Bronco and Manning tape, the game plan was not much different than any of the previous 18 games.

The strategy was simple and basic as it had been throughout the year: Fast, physical, aggressive.

That made it easier and simpler for the defensive unit to attack the Broncos offense.

"It’s the same exact game plan," defensive end Michael Bennett said. "When you’ve got these kinds of players, you don’t need to change up anything. It was the same base defense we’ve played."

Denver turned the ball over four times. Positioning and preparedness on the field was all put into place by figuring out how Manning decided on his targets.

"There wasn’t a lot that we mixed in early, because we really wanted to play within the style that we have," Quinn said. "We’re really committed to the way that we play. There wasn’t a lot of coverage change-ups early on in the game. It was more of a function of how we were getting to them."

That allowed Seattle to shutdown the NFL’s most prolific offense with ease. And while Quinn, the Morristown native, didn’t want to take solitary credit for it or boast about the job his defense did, his players were all too happy to carry that flag.

"I think our defense is one of the best defenses to ever play the game," Bennett said.