Super Bowl L Champions: Denver Broncos
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Okay, so, the highly anticipated 50th Super Bowl is over. Manning gets to ride off into the sunset having won his second ring, and the Broncos earned the third Vince Lombardi Trophy in franchise history, becoming only the ninth NFL franchise to have won at least three Super Bowl titles in their history.
Two years ago, the Broncos went to the Super Bowl with a record-setting offense, only to lose big. This year, the Panthers came in with the offense that had everyone standing up and taking notice.
But the Broncos defense more or less did to the Panthers offense what Seattle's defense did to Denver's offense two years ago, although this game was much closer than that one was two years ago.
Still, Carolina's offense was kept to their lowest point total of the season, allowing the Denver defense to effectively outscore them with a fumble recovery for a touchdown, as well as several other turnovers that set up Denver scores.
Cam Newton was the dangerous weapon that the Broncos had to stop defensively, and many felt that they were not up to the task. However, they were more than up to the task, roughing up Newton all game long, and generally making his life Hell last night. Newton completed 18 of 41 pass attempts for 265 yards and one interception, which made a miserable impression for Newton's first Super Bowl appearance ever. His running game usually is very dangerous, but Denver contained him there, too, keeping him to 45 yards on six rushes. He also lost two fumbles.
He had been boisterous all season long, showing a swagger and essentially daring opposing defenses to stop him. That bravado took him all the way to the Super Bowl, to his credit. But once there, he found a defense that actually did manage to stop him, although he was reluctant to give them credit, suggesting instead that he and his team mates had simply had a bad day.
“It weren’t nothing special that they did,” Newton said. “We dropped balls, we turned the ball over, gave up sacks, threw errant passes, that’s it. We lost.”
They didn't do anything special? The Broncos were underdogs and, by many estimates, should have been heavier underdogs than they officially were. The Panthers offense was too good, almost unstoppable, many of the experts said. Yet, the Broncos hit Cam Newton 13 times, and sacked him seven times! Add that up, and that means that Newton was hit 20 times, and that does not include the passes that he threw that Denver defenders batted down.
Newton was visibly frustrated throughout the game, and was simply never allowed to get into a groove. True, he has a point when he says that the Panthers made some mistakes, including some dropped passes. Newton overthrew some receivers. But suggesting that the Broncos did not do anything special smacks of detracting credit from them.
To his credit, he did follow that up by acknowledging that the Broncos earned the victory.
“They just played better than us.” he said.
He's not a bad guy. In fact, he's a decent role model for kids. That said, I'm not personally a big fan of self-promoters, especially guys who refer to themselves as "Superman" and seem to challenge any opposing defenses to stop him, especially when he seems bent out of shape when a defense actually manages to do it. Frankly, if you are going to call yourself Superman and flaunt your talent and success, than you should also be able to handle things a bit better and give credit to the other team when it comes down to it. Denver's defense outplayed Carolina's offense, and a lot of the mistakes that he seems to think Carolina made were also in large part a result of what the Broncos were doing to them.
But Cam was not the only quarterback on the field who had a largely forgettable day. Manning finished the day completing 13 of 23 for 141 yards and an interception. Hardly the type of Super Bowl game that he would have wanted as possibly his last game, although at least he helped Denver earn a ring on this day.
Here's a shocking statistic: Peyton Manning had the worst statistics of any winning Super Bowl quarterback in history this year.
Manning, like his boss John Elway, was not as crucial to this Super Bowl win as his big name and reputation would seem to suggest he should have been. Indeed, he had a subpar game. But the Broncos won anyway, and the irony is that Manning did not win many Super Bowls when he was putting up some unbelievable numbers, but he won this year, when he was far from his usual, stellar self on the field.
In fact, the Broncos offense set a record for least productivity on offense for any Super Bowl winner, gaining just 194 yards total, and producing a mere 11 first downs. Carolina was not that much better in a losing effort. Both teams were particularly bad on third down, with Denver converting on only 1 of 14 chances, while Carolina converted 3 of 15 chances.
This was not the dream offensive showdown that many had hoped for.
Of course, it helps that the Broncos had the stingiest defense in the league. Von Miller led the way, earning the MVP award by forcing two fumbles, getting 2.5 sacks of Newton, and 6 tackles overall. He was the anchor of a superb defense that effectively won the game for the Denver Broncos, and it is the reason that they were able to pull off the upset against the powerful favorites, the Carolina Panthers.
Broncos outlast Panthers, claim third Super Bowl title 750 By Gregg Rosenthal, Feb. 7, 2016:
Peyton Manning had the worst season of any Super Bowl-winning QB By Steven Ruiz, February 7, 2016:
Cam Newton was nothing but himself after his worse loss and nobody should be mad at him By: Chris Korman | February 8, 2016
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