Through Week 13 of last season — less than 15 months past, so not really all that long ago in real time — the Carolina Panthers were a miserable team. They were 3-8-1 and headed for a disastrous finish. Head coach Ron Rivera was most likely facing his final handful of games in charge. Cam Newton’s future perhaps didn’t quite seem as full of potential as it once did. This was a bad situation that only looked to be getting worse.
Since that moment in time, the Panthers have won 23 times and lost twice, once in last year’s Divisional round (to the NFC champion Seattle Seahawks) and in Week 16 of this past season (to the Atlanta Falcons, somewhat inexplicably). That’s it and that’s all. Otherwise, the Panthers have had a perfect record. They’re far from being a perfect football team, but Carolina wins games when given the chance. And now, standing at the precipice of a historic 18-1 season, the Panthers need only to win one more game to cement all sorts of legacy.
So, Carolina has the weight of history on its back, a most opportune burden for which some would gladly trade their careers. All it will take is one win over the Denver Broncos — they of the legendary quarterback on his last legs and a stellar defense to boot — and they enter the conservation for Best NFL Team of All-Time. Because the Panthers are not 18-0 and are 17-1, this reality has not discussed much by way of mainstream narratives, but they belong in that talk, make no mistake. Carolina is a perennial powerhouse in its infancy, and this Super Bowl may well be its graduation.
The big story of this Super Bowl, undoubtedly, will be the matchup of Denver’s front seven, led by linebacker Von Miller, against Newton, who, if there is any sanity amongst the voters, will eventually be named league MVP by a wide and overwhelming margin. Carolina’s impressive record does, of course, bolster Newton’s case, but it’s the way he is interlaced into every facet of the Panthers offense. His value to the team — the way he makes mediocre receivers seem Pro Bowl-caliber, an ability to step up and elude the pass rush to create more time in the pocket, his preternatural sense of how to turn both improvised scrambles and designed draws into big gains — is near-incalculable. And his greatest test now comes with the Broncos’ pass rush, which will do all it can to force Newton out of his comfort zone. The only problem with that is Newton’s comfort zone is seemingly infinite. When he sees no good option downfield, he tucks the ball and runs for positive yardage. But his ability to get the ball deep downfield means you can’t cheat and just blitz every time. Newton makes a defense play honest from the first snap — or else.
With Kelvin Benjamin knocked of the season in training camp, tight end Greg Olsen has been the major beneficiary of Newton’s passing (a career-high 1,104 receiving yards) since the first snap of Week 1. Ted Ginn, when he’s able to hold on to the ball, is a deep-play threat that offensive coordinator Mike Shula can deploy with discretion, and Jonathan Stewart (989 rushing yards) is a non-Newton rushing option that provides the offense with depth and a little variety. So, it’s little surprise that no team in the NFL scored more points than the Panthers (500) and no team outscored its opponents by more (192 points). Carolina has already racked up insurmountable leads against Seattle and Arizona with surprising speed, and one would not be surprised to see the same thing happen against Denver. Twenty-four points by halftime? More than that? Even considering the Broncos’ stingy No. 1 defense, it feels utterly possible with Newton at the helm.
But what gives Carolina fans so much confidence heading into this contest isn’t even that they have Newton. It’s more that they now have the workings of a semi-elite defense that can stop opposing offenses with regularity. They allowed both the sixth-fewest points and total yards of any team. They have grade-A players in all three defensive areas, from the line (Kawann Short) to the midfield (Luke Kuechly, Thomas Davis) to the secondary (Josh Norman). Carolina had the sixth-most sacks, which helps in that they’re facing a quarterback (Peyton Manning) who is essentially immobile. And because Denver will do anything it can to get the passing game going so as to accentuate the dual-ground attack of Ronnie Hillman and C.J. Anderson, it helps as well that Carolina had the second-most passes defended. Up front and in space, the Panthers can suffocate the Denver offense in a variety of ways, especially because Manning is far from the tier-one passer he resembled just two years ago during his last Super Bowl campaign.
The Panthers’ secondary, which gets mighty thin after Norman, is their biggest weakness of all the major skill areas, but unless Manning reverts to a form more akin to that of his younger years, Carolina should be able to weather whatever offense serves up. Remember, as always, the goal here is to outscore your opponent, be that by one point or 30. Denver needs a lot to go right for that to happen for them. Carolina, thanks to its talent and depth, simply has more paths to victory — and one of them will likely see their way through in Santa Clara.
