By the time halftime rolled around Sunday night, this hyped and hoped-for Super Bowl 50 between Carolina and Denver was very much heading down a path from which it would not deviate. That path, sadly for many, was strewn with missed opportunities, frequent turnovers, and a distinct dearth of points, which is important when you’re trying to win football games. Denver, it turns out, had all the points it needed by the time Beyoncé emerged from the heavens down onto the Levi’s Stadium field, to entertain an audience as it seems only she can. Those 30 remaining minutes of game clock were merely academic.
In the end, it was Cam Newton’s inability to crack a determined and inspired Broncos defense that made all the difference. Linebacker Von Miller, who took home MVP honors, harassed the man taken one spot ahead of him in the 2011 draft, without mercy or letting up. And even though Denver recorded the lowest offensive output for any Super Bowl winner ever, it mattered not. The Broncos, on the strength of their No. 1-ranked defense, came away as the champs after winning Super Bowl 50, 24-10, in front of a sun-baked Santa Clara crowd.
But oh, that Denver defense. What was Newton to do? This game resembled every Super Bowl loss where we assumed the quarterback was simply too good to look this bad. Tom Brady in both losses to the Giants? Peyton just two years ago against Seattle? I remember how they couldn’t possibly lose those games because they were in their prime and the passing attacks were going to bombard the defense with an unrelenting barrage of deep throws and Vine-able, jaw-dropping catches.
So, what did these defenses do? They used a skilled pass rush to pressure their opposition to make mistakes. Denver’s performance against Carolina was no different. Defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, himself now finally a Super Bowl winner at the age of 68, worked a masterful approach to neutralizing Newton’s greatest attributes, mainly his ability to use protection to either find receivers or give up and run for positive yardage. Newton was Carolina’s leading rusher with 45 yards, and the Panthers’ 118 yards on the ground was, in the aggregate, a hollow achievement. There were few times when the Panthers legitimately threatened on offense, thanks to seven sacks and four turnovers forced.
And if we went into this Super Bowl thinking there was a team that wouldn’t be able to score enough points to win, it most definitely was Denver. Yet the Broncos proved that if you can move the ball just enough, hit your field goals when you’re afforded the chance, and then get lucky with a defensive score (as Denver was in the first quarter), you can figure out the rest. And let’s be clear that the Broncos were abysmal on offense. They had the fewest net yards ever (194) for a Super Bowl champ. They were 1-for-14 on third downs. They had more punts (8) than Carolina (7). Carolina had 10 more first downs (21-11). In hindsight, it’s kind of astounding that the Broncos actually did win with this offense. Maybe the kindest thing you can say about it is that they never made the crucial mistake that would’ve derailed everything.
Carolina, alas, did make one such turnover late in the game and never fully recovered. The ball Newton fumbled with a little more than four minutes left in the game will reside as a dormant nightmare in the brains of Panthers fans. It may be years before they recover, because it looked like Carolina would have One Good Drive left to win the Super Bowl, and that’s really all any team can truly ask for. And then that chance was frittered away. Denver recovered in the red zone, and a C.J. Anderson dive across the goal line four plays later sealed the Panthers’ fate.
As a neutral party to this game, I can’t help but think that Denver, even with that putrid “offense,” earned this one more than Carolina gave it away. The Panthers kept making mistakes, but they regrouped every time and when the game was sitting at 16-10, you couldn’t have been blamed for assuming this was somehow destined for last-second heroics and a 17-16 Panthers victory. But Denver’s defense simply would not allow that outcome to occur.
And now Manning, in all likelihood, goes out a champion, Newton regroups for another run through a relatively weak NFC, and the league prepares for a Super Bowl world reliant once again on the archaic use of Roman numerals. It was a game that was miles from perfection, but it happened and here we all are.
At least we’ll always have Beyoncé.
