With Seattle completely shutting down Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos, the Seahawks reinforced the notion that they are among the best defenses of all time.

This season, the Seahawks led the NFL with just 14.4 points and 273.6 yards allowed per game. Those numbers are even more impressive in this scoring-happy era of the NFL as Seattle gave up 9.0 fewer points per game and 74.9 fewer yards per game than the NFL average.

Only seven defenses since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger have had a bigger difference between the points they allowed per game and the NFL's average defense. Here are the top 15 defenses during that period in terms of points allowed compared to the NFL average (cont. below).

Of these 15 teams, seven went on to win the Super Bowl. The 1975 Rams had the biggest difference, giving up just 9.6 points per game, 11.0 points better than the league average (20.6 ppg).

The Seahawks rank fifth among these teams in terms of yards allowed per game compared to the NFL average. The 2008 Steelers were the best amongst this group in terms of yardage, as they gave up 237.2 yards per game, 90.1 fewer yards than the league average that season (327.2 ypg).

No matter how you want to rank the defenses, the Seahawks deserve to be in the conversation, and are clearly one of the five or ten best of the last half-century.

Data via Pro-Football-Reference.com