Super Bowl 50 Recap

The 2015 NFL season has come to an end, and what an end it was. An up and down season ended in a place that is both utterly predictable and entirely shocking, with the Denver Broncos claiming the Super Bowl title. (Here’s where I pat myself on the bat for calling this one prior to the season. Yeah, I know, I predicted Carolina to win in my preview last week. But the prediction I made in September was spot on).

Denver had as tumultuous a season as I can recall for any Super Bowl champion. They fired their head coach after 12 wins last season, and they replaced him with the predictably bland Gary Kubiak. Peyton Manning was coming off an injury plagued season that many thought would convince him to retire, and at times it actually looked like this should have been the case. He missed more time with injury, and when he came back he had lost his starting job to Brock Osweiler, only to have it fall back into his lap in Week 17. And now he is the first starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl with two different franchises, and we may very well have seen the last of him.

Things were up and down for the Broncos all season, but there was one constant from beginning to end. Denver’s defense was the best in the league this year, and now we have to figure out where it belongs in the conversation for the best of all time. They now join a list of great defenses that have carried subpar offense to championships, most recently the 2000 Ravens and the 2002 Buccaneers.

I think it’s reasonable to put them on the same level with these two units, despite the fact that they didn’t receive nearly as much attention during the season. We spent so much time this year talking about Manning and the Broncos offense that we somehow managed to ignore the greatness happening on the other side of the ball, until it came out and punched us in the face.

As a team the Broncos will have an interesting legacy. They will be remembered mainly as Manning’s second title, and perhaps their performance over the past couple weeks will earn them the same sort of mention as previous defensive champions. But the game itself will likely be mostly forgotten, as many people spent the entirety complaining about how uninteresting it was.

I was not among those people. I found this game absolutely thrilling, and not just in the pedantic “defense is more fun to watch than offense” way. That is often used as an excuse for sloppy football, which was admittedly part of what happened yesterday. But in this case, the sloppiness of the offenses was more than outmatched by the athletic dominance of these defenses.

This wasn’t a game we will treasure in our memories, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable contest. The Broncos won the game, and they certainly looked worthy in doing so. But even though I picked the Panthers to win the game, I can’t say I’m particularly surprised by anything that happened. These teams are who we thought they were coming into the game, and because of a few things that happened to go their way, the Broncos are now the Super Bowl champions.

The Offenses

 

I’m going to start with the offenses, because I do have to talk about them. I don’t want to, but it has to happen. This is the part of the game that caused so many fans to call it ugly and unwatchable, a miserable performance from both the Panthers and the Broncos on the offensive side of the ball. Only two offensive touchdowns were scored in the game, and one came on Denver’s fourth try after recovering a fumble inside the five yardline.

I’ll get to the defenses in a little while, since they deserve most of the credit for turning this game into the slugfest that it was. But the offenses did their part as well, with enough mistakes and sloppy play to keep this from becoming a true back and forth game. I’m not sure if there is a single offensive player who deserves to be proud of how he performed (and if there are any, I’m pretty sure they were wearing number 10). This was bad play at every single position on the field, for both units that were out there.

Denver won this game, but it didn’t have a lot to do with their offense. They had some success on their first drive, but after that they spent most of the game either punting or converting short fields into field goals. They got a few rushing lanes open for CJ Anderson, and Manning managed to find Emmanuel Sanders a couple times downfield, but for the most part they weren’t able to generate anything on this side of the ball.

The core of their problem was on the offensive line. This was a clear disadvantage prior to the game, as I pointed out when breaking down Carolina’s defensive tackles as a pass rushing threat on Manning. As it turned out, this was one part of the game where the Broncos had some success on offense. Kawann Short and Star Lotulelei made a couple nice plays, but for the most part they were handled by strong games from Evan Mathis and Louis Vasquez.

It was a different story on the edges. Kony Ealy was nearly as dominant on this side as Von Miller was on the other, and if the Panthers had managed to win he was likely the deserving MVP winner. He was responsible for both Carolina takeaways, and he had three total sacks on the night.

The edge pressure was getting there, but while pressure from the edge can generate big plays, it doesn’t have the play in and play out effect of interior pressure. Ealy wrecked several Broncos drives, but when he wasn’t getting home, he wasn’t a factor, and Manning was able to complete some throws down the field.

Things would have been a lot easier for the Broncos if Manning had had any options at wide receiver, but what was only a year ago the strongest point of this offense has become a surprising weakness. It was always going to be an issue with Bennie Fowler and Andre Caldwell as the number three and four options, but there was no way we could have seen Demaryius Thomas being as useless as he was during the playoff run. Matched up against Josh Norman for most of the night, he was very rarely able to create separation, and when he did get free he struggled to bring in the ball.

Denver’s only threat in the passing game was Sanders, and he did just enough to keep their offense from completely stagnating. Spared from having to face Norman, he finished with six catches for 83 yards, compared with 7 catches for 58 yards by the rest of the Broncos roster. It wasn’t a lot, but if I had to pick an offensive MVP for the Broncos, I would probably give a slight edge to Sanders over Anderson.

It’s even tougher to find someone who played well on Carolina’s offense. All year the story of this unit was a group of misfits elevating their game around a superstar in Cam Newton, and in this one game every single part of this managed to fall apart. Ted Ginn and Michael Oher looked like Ted Ginn and Michael Oher again, while Newton played the worst game of his season on the biggest stage.

Again, I am going to give Denver’s defense the credit it deserves down below, but first we need to talk about Carolina. They had one brief stretch of offensive success in the second quarter, when they managed to drive the length of the field and score a touchdown against a defense that had been dominating them to that point. At the time it looked like the beginning of a comeback, but there were warning signs that this wouldn’t last.

The success they had on that drive came largely through misdirection. For the first quarter and a half they played everything pretty straight, and the Broncos responded by blitzing the hell out of them. They brought wave after wave of pressure into Newton’s face, and it knocked Carolina’s offense completely off schedule. Carolina responded by mixing it up, beating Denver’s aggression with some read option plays and a key throwback screen. This worked for a single drive, but after that the Broncos defense calmed down, playing with more discipline and keeping the game under control.

This explains some of what happened from that point on, but it doesn’t quite capture the whole picture. Denver shut down a lot of Carolina’s misdirection, but the Panthers certainly didn’t try to push it. They remained surprisingly bland offensively, never attempting any screen passes and rarely using Newton in the running game. When they did run options, it almost always ended with the ball being handed to Mike Tolbert up the middle, not the ideal outcome for the play.

No one on Carolina’s offense played well, aside from a few nice plays by Corey Brown before he left with a concussion. But the most significant failure belongs to their most significant player. Cam Newton was bad in this game, worse than the quarterback on the opposite side of the field. He was under pressure from the first snap to the end of the game, but even when he was well protected he struggled to make any plays. He missed several open receivers, did very little to help his protection, and was too loose with the ball on several occasions.

This comes back to the strangest part of Newton’s game, something I pointed out in my preview post. Newton is a great passer, and Newton is a great runner, but he doesn’t seem to be able to blend his mobility and his passing attack. During the regular season he had 132 carries, of which 103 were on designed runs. Fewer than twice per game did he take off on a passing play that broke down, and more often than not he remained in the pocket to complete the play within the designed structure.

Newton is a dynamic athlete, but he lacks improvisational skills. And against the sort of pressure he was facing from the Broncos, improvisation was crucial to being able to sustain offensive success. Several times during the game he did manage to escape the pocket, but this never turned into a play down the field. More often than not he simply lofted the ball out of bounds, settling for a lost play.

The thing we have to remember about Newton is that he’s only 26 years old. He is coming off an MVP season, and he is likely only going to get better. Putting talent around him will certainly help matters in this area, but this is something he has to address himself.

For years mobile quarterbacks (particularly black mobile quarterbacks) have been under unfair pressure to prove that they can play from the pocket. Well, after five years in the league I think Newton has proved to everyone that he can do this. Now he needs to take the next step, to blend his mobility in a way that will make him the ultimate NFL weapon. With a long career still ahead of him, he will have plenty of chances to make it back to this stage, and if that happens, hopefully he won’t suffer the same mistakes that ruined Carolina’s championship chances this year.

The Defenses

Carolina’s offense was nonexistent, but their defense was good enough to keep them in the game. This was probably the least surprising part of the game, as Carolina’s top five defense managed to shut down Denver’s bottom ten offense. They did this much in the way we all expected, by locking down one of Denver’s top receivers with Josh Norman and trusting their linebackers to take away the middle of the field.

Denver hasn’t had a dangerous passing attack all year, but against Pittsburgh and New England they were at least functional. They achieved this by completing simple passes over the middle, either using their tight ends on seam routes or running their receivers across on drags. Yards after the catch were a crucial part of their offense in both previous playoff games, a piece that was taken away by Carolina’s athleticism.

The speed with which Carolina’s linebackers can move is simply staggering. Denver managed to complete a pass to Owen Daniels on the first drive of the game when both Luke Keuchly and Thomas Davis came on a blitz up the middle, but from that point on their tight ends did not have a single reception. Against the Patriots the Broncos managed to score twice in the red zone by beating Jamie Collins (who also belongs on the list of most athletic linebackers in the NFL) with their tight ends, but when Carolina managed to take this away, they had no avenue for success down by the goalline, forcing them to settle for field goals and keeping the game within reach.

The best example of Carolina’s defensive speed came on a play in the second quarter. Facing a third and 17, the Broncos tried a play that had worked in a similar situation against New England. They put three receivers on the left side and ran Thomas on a drag from the right, expecting him to run in behind the receivers who were sent downfield with the sole purpose of blocking. And it might have worked too, had Keuchly not exploded past the blockers and hit Thomas just as the ball arrived. The break on the ball was the sort of play a top notch cornerback would make, and it forced the Broncos into a punt from deep in their own territory.

This was a recurring theme throughout the game. The Broncos had sporadic success running the ball, but when they weren’t gashing the Panthers for eight or nine yards, they were usually stuffed at the line. Over and over they faced third and long, and over and over they were forced to give up on the drive, punting eight times in the game.

Carolina’s defense played one of the best games I have ever seen, and it’s almost a shame that they were so overshadowed by the other defense on the field. Because while Carolina was making plays with their linebackers and edge rushers, Denver received dominance from every single player on the field, the sort of total performance that would have allowed them to shut down any offense they faced.

It starts with Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware, but I’ll come back to them. First, I want to talk about the performance by Denver’s secondary. I saw a lot of talk during and after the game about how this performance demonstrated the true value of a pass rush. This is a point I’ve been making for years, but for once I find myself on the other side of this argument. A great pass rush can cover up a lot of flaws, but what makes Denver truly special is that they don’t have any flaws to cover. Their pass rush certainly made life difficult for Newton, but so did the coverage from the best trio of cornerbacks in the game.

Denver’s coverage scheme was effective in its simplicity. They didn’t play matchups with receivers, keeping Aqib Talib on the left side and Chris Harris on the right with Bradley Roby bouncing back and forth to either cover the slot or drop into a deep zone. Harris was particularly spectacular, and Newton almost never even looked to the left side of the field. He had occasional success going after Talib, but more often than not he didn’t have any open receivers to choose from, and he could only eat the ball as the pass rush closed in.

Denver challenged Carolina’s receivers, and they were the decisive winners. They played tight off the snap and ran a lot in trail coverage, daring Newton to try to fit the ball in over the top of them. Newton has a magnificent arm and can absolutely fire the ball into tight windows, but touch is not one of his strengths. He missed several open receivers trying to throw lasers rather than teardrops, as the underneath cornerbacks closed his windows down to essentially nothing.

This strategy can work, but it also leaves a defense vulnerable to big plays. The combination of Ted Ginn and Corey Brown gives Carolina one of the fastest receiver groups in the league, and against most defenses they would be able to separate over the top. But they simply didn’t have time, not with Miller and Ware closing in on the quarterback on the other end.

Denver’s devastation of Carolina’s offensive line was magnificent. The pass rush gets most of the attention, but what they did to Carolina’s running game was every bit as impressive. Jonathan Stewart had nowhere to run the entire game, swarmed by defenders behind the line every time he received the ball. Malik Jackson and Derek Wolfe ate up the inside of Carolina’s line, helped by an injury to All Pro guard Trai Turner.

But what really made this game was the pressure from the edge. Miller and Ware almost seemed to take turns beating the tackles to get to the quarterback, and they finished plays when they made it to Newton. It didn’t matter how many players Carolina kept in to block—especially not when Denver’s clever blitzes and fakes messed with their protection schemes—and it didn’t matter how hard Newton fought. Ware blindsided him over and over again, and Miller came into the backfield with the sole purpose of ripping the football from his hands. The clearcut choice for MVP, Miller played the best game of his career on the biggest stage, and he was the key to Denver’s victory.

Sheer Dumb Luck

Football is an absolutely bizarre game. On every play and in every moment, there are 22 players on the field, each and every one of them doing their own thing and working towards their own goals. At times it can be balletic and beautiful, but often it denigrates into total chaos, with the randomness of nearly two dozen bouncing bodies and a misshapen lump of the ball deciding the outcome of an entire year of effort.

The performance of the Broncos defense was likely enough to win them the game, but they certainly had help in other facets. There were a lot of breaks in this game, and each team had some luck go in their favor. But on the whole I think it’s fair to say that the Broncos got the better end of the random bounces throughout the game.

The first and most obvious is turnovers. This is the one thing I can point to from my prediction last week that I was absolutely incorrect about. During the regular season Carolina was the best team in the league at winning the turnover battle, finishing with 20 more takeaways than their opponents. Going up against a Broncos team that had struggled to hold onto the ball, I expected them to win the turnover battle, a victory that would be the deciding factor in this game.

On this count I was wrong. The Broncos did turn the ball over as I expected, with both and interception and a fumble by Manning. The other side of the ball was where the true surprise came, with the Panthers suffering four costly turnovers, including two that led to both Denver touchdowns.

Some of this was simply good playmaking, knocking the ball out of Newton’s hands or pressuring him so he floated a pass over the middle. But a lot of it also comes down to luck. A loose ball is simply a 50/50 proposition, having nothing at all to do with coaching or effort despite what some people believe. And yet, of the seven fumbles in this game, the Broncos managed to recover five. A couple of these balls bounce differently, things could very well have swung for Carolina.

Less obvious but just as significant was special teams. Denver was a perfect 3 for 3 on field goal attempts, while Carolina made only 1 of 2, with the other clanging off the upright early in the second half. In a game that was decided by 14 points, it’s hard to say that this one field goal would have made the difference, but it certainly would have shifted the way the game was played afterwards.

Another forgotten play from earlier in the game was the strange punt return by Jordan Norwood. This was a rare case of Carolina actually suffering because the kick had too much hang time, as their coverage got down the field too quick and couldn’t time their arrival. The first two guys there were so busy trying to avoid drawing an interference penalty that they made no move to tackle the returner, and 61 yards later the Broncos were in position for their second field goal.

On both offense and on defense, this game looked a lot like I expected it would. Things went a little more Denver’s way, the matchups ended up working out in their favor, but what turned this game from a squeaker into a comfortable victory were the other breaks that went for the Broncos. Football is a random game sometimes, and it is incredibly stupid that we invest so much emotion into something that can come down to the flip of a coin. It’s unhealthy, it’s dangerous, and it’s borderline masochistic.

Only 213 days until the start of the 2016 season.

Peyton Manning

I’ll end here, because this is where all wrapups of the game should end. Nothing is official yet, but in all likelihood we just witnessed one of the greatest players in NFL history finish his career at the very top. When the playoffs began I never expected the Broncos to make it this far, and it feels as if I’ve written two or three elegies for Manning’s career already. But one more can’t hurt, and I’ll try to keep this brief.

I believe that Manning is the greatest quarterback of all time. I believed this even before yesterday’s Super Bowl victory. I believed this even before he came back from his neck injury, before he put up a record breaking 2013 season and won another MVP. I’ve believed he is the greatest quarterback of all time for more than five years now, and he’s just kept plugging along, giving me more fuel for my fire.

Everything you could imagine a quarterback achieving, he has achieved. He’s won five MVPs. The next best anyone has done is Brett Favre with three. He has two Super Bowl titles, winning the MVP of the game in the first of them. He put together a run of regular season success with an impossible seven straight seasons of 12 or more wins. He holds just about every regular season and career quarterback record you can name.

Manning’s entire career has been dogged by the chase for a championship. It started in college, when he could never quite get Tennessee over the hump, only to see them win a national championship the year after he left. It continued into his pro career, when he went until his ninth season without winning a Super Bowl. And even after that, he was criticized for having only one victory, falling just short against the Saints in 2009 and the Seahawks in 2013.

This season was the worst of his career by a significant margin, but it also ties a neat ribbon on what he represents to the league. As his career has progressed, the NFL has shifted to even more of a passing game, turning the quarterback from the most valuable position on the field into what seemed like the only valuable position on the field. Stats are still closely watched, but with the effect a quarterback can have on a game, it can be too easy at times to summarize a player solely by his team's success.

Manning has fallen victim to this fallacy for years, but now he gets the last laugh. On his performance alone he did not deserve to win this Super Bowl, but if we look at what he did in Indianapolis (and his first two and a half years in Denver), he deserves more than the one championship he got out of that. This game was the  ultimate rebuttal to those who believed his lack of championships was an indictment of him, a sort of rebalancing of the scales after a career of greatness and rotten luck.

Super Bowl 50 Preview

There is one game left on the season, so let’s use this opportunity to get the last of the football out of our systems. We have witnessed 266 games so far this year (332 if you count the Pro Bowl and the preseason), but this is the only one that really matters. These two teams have followed very different paths to make it here, and Sunday’s game will be a classic matchup of strength versus strength. On each side of the ball I’ve highlighted a pair of matchups that will go a long way to deciding the outcome, followed by my prediction for who will come away as Super Bowl Champions.

Miller and Ware vs Newton

The performance of Carolina’s offensive line has been one of the biggest reasons for their surprising success this year. A unit that was expected to be a major liability turned into a moderate strength, thanks to the growth of young players like Trai Turner and Andrew Norwell, as well as surprise contributions from a mediocre veteran in Michael Oher.

As a unit they are better in the running game, but they’ve improved as pass blockers over the past couple months. They stymied Seattle’s potent pass rush and held their ground against Arizona’s ferocious blitz attack. They’ve kept Cam Newton clean in the pocket all season, giving him the time and space to shred opposing defenses.

But they’ve never faced anything like Denver’s pass rush. What the Broncos did to Tom Brady in the championship round would have been hard to watch if it was anyone other than Tom Brady, and with two weeks to prepare Wade Phillips will definitely have something cooked up for Carolina. DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller get all the attention, but it’s the versatility of this pass rush that makes it truly dangerous. Derek Wolfe and Malik Jackson are known primarily for their ability to stuff the run, but they can get after the passer as well, and Phillips always knows how to put them in position to be productive.

On the perimeter the Broncos have a clear advantage. Carolina’s receiving corps isn’t scaring anyone, and they definitely aren’t a serious threat to the best three deep rotation of cornerbacks in the league. There is always the risk that Ted Ginn can beat them over the top, but I’m guessing Denver will sacrifice a play here or there in order to play tight press coverage across the board. Aqib Talib will be grabbing and shoving on one side while Chris Harris sits in the hip pocket of the receiver on the other, and there will be very few immediate windows for Newton to throw the ball into.

The Broncos have the best defense in the NFL, and Carolina will be facing a major challenge trying to move the ball against them. It will be interesting to see what their running attack can do against the formidable interior of Denver’s defense, but even if they can generate occasional yards on the ground, they will still need to find a way to pass the ball.

Newton has been the best player in the NFL this season, but beating the Broncos will require him to do something he hasn’t done all year. He is one of the most mobile quarterbacks in the league, but there is a sharp divide in his game. On any individual play he is either a runner or a passer, and he very rarely blends the two on a single play. His passing attack comes primarily from the pocket, while his running game is almost always called in the huddle.

The designed running game will be crucial for the Panthers on Sunday. A few zone reads or designed quarterback keeps will definitely slow down Denver’s edge rush, forcing them to play with discipline that will give Carolina’s offensive line an extra half a second to cut them off. But they will still eventually get home, and when they do, the Panthers will need Newton to step up to keep their offense moving.

Improvisation is not a major part of Newton’s game, but it will have to make an appearance on Sunday. Two weeks ago Denver feasted on a quarterback who was trapped in the pocket, and they will do the same if Newton doesn’t make an occasional break with the ball and use his mobility to his advantage.

Getting outside the pocket will give his receivers more time to work their way open downfield, and will force the defense to bend to respond to the threat of a run. Carolina’s offense has been a smooth and efficient machine for most of the season, and it’s very possible that they can impose their will in the same way on Denver. But, more likely than not, this game will be a low scoring contest, and will come down to a big play here or there. Newton is capable of making those big plays, but he has to be more aggressive when he has the ball in his hands.

Thomas  and Sanders vs Keuchly, Davis, Coleman, and Harper

You can throw the ball on Carolina’s defense. This is a very good unit, good enough to overshadow one of the best offenses in the league, and it has been extremely hard for any opponent to score points or move the ball on them. They are stout at every level on the field, they play with a nearly perfect blend of aggression and discipline, and they generate offense on their own by forcing the other team to give them the ball. 

But you can throw the ball on Carolina’s defense. Josh Norman deserves nearly all of the praise he has received this season, and he will be a nightmare for whoever he ends up facing. It will be interesting to see how Carolina plays this, whether they keep him on one side of the field or choose to have him shadow one of Denver’s receivers. And if they do stick him in a classic man on man battle, which receiver will they choose? 

Demaryius Thomas is the bigger name, a physical marvel who developed into one of the best receivers in the NFL after being selected in the first round in 2010. But over the past two years, it’s become increasingly clear that Denver’s best wide receiver is Emmanuel Sanders. He doesn’t have the sheer physicality of Thomas, but he is more versatile in his route running, giving the offense the ability to attack underneath and over the top. More significantly, he has much more reliable hands than Thomas, who quietly suffers as many drop issues as an receiver in the NFL.

Whoever he ends up facing, the battle of Norman versus Denver’s receivers will be one to watch. He has shut down most of the receivers he’s faced this year, though he was exposed at times by both Odell Beckham and Julio Jones. His biggest vulnerability is the same as Carolina’s as a whole, a weakness to the deep ball. They play tight coverage, and they count on being able to run with receivers, but their safeties are below average, and quality receivers can beat the coverage over the top.

This is one area where things do not break in Denver’s favor. The best way to attack Carolina is the one thing Denver cannot do. Manning has played well since returning from injury, but he still isn’t a threat down the field. He doesn’t have the arm strength to launch the ball high into the sky and let his receivers run underneath it, and he will struggle to zip balls through the windows down the field. His lone remaining strength is his ability to get the ball out of his hands quickly to underneath targets, judging the defense before the snap and trusting his mind over his body.

This plays right into Carolina’s hands. With no fear of being beaten over the top, they will be able to play even more aggressively against Denver’s receivers. And no team is better suited than the Panthers to take away the middle of the field, the easiest spot for Manning to hit. Luke Keuchly and Thomas Davis are the best pair of coverage linebackers in the league, and the windows across the middle may be too tight for Manning to fit the ball through.

Davis is the wild card in this game. Against Arizona just two weeks ago he suffered a fractured arm, which after a surgical procedure he insists won’t keep him out of the game. But we don’t know how effective he’ll be playing with it, how he’ll be able to hold up taking on blockers in the running game or making plays on the ball against the pass. Fully healthy, this Panthers linebacker corps would be a death sentence for Denver. As things are, there might just be a chance for the Broncos to hit a few windows and keep their offense on the field.

Short and Lotulelei vs Manning

Peyton Manning was very good against the Patriots. He clearly wasn’t the Manning of old, and he clearly wasn’t the main reason they won the game, but he was better than most people are giving him credit for. It seems strange to think that only a month ago we were debating whether he should even start for the Broncos in the playoffs, and now we are trying to rationalize that argument again, despite the fact that Denver would not have made it this far without the contributions Manning is still making.

He was better early in the game against the Patriots than he was late, partially due to a change in offensive style. Gary Kubiak is not the sort of coach who goes for an opponent’s throat, and he let New England claw their way back into the game with a watered down second half attack. Manning missed a couple big throws, but he still did more than enough to win the game early on and could have done even more if given a chance.

When he ran into trouble against the Patriots, it happened because of pressure. And not just any pressure either, but pressure up the middle. Interior pressure is always a bane of quarterbacks, and it is a particular problem for Manning, who has lost the pocket mobility that so defined him early in his career. The subtle shifts to the side simply aren’t available in his game anymore, and pressure in his face destroys any hope he has of completing a ball downfield.

The criticism has gone over the top, but where the doubters have a point is how Manning handled the pressure he faced in New England. In short, it was ugly. The Broncos saw multiple possessions end due to Manning’s lack of mobility, as his response to interior pressure was to scramble backwards a couple yards then fall flat on the ground (a trick I’m guessing he learned from rookie backup Trevor Siemian. Go Cats.)

Denver’s offensive line isn’t very good, so there is going to be pressure in Manning’s face no matter who the opponent is. And in this case, the opponent is Carolina, a team that has just come off back to back games beating up Russell Wilson and Carson Palmer. Their edge rush is not particularly frightening (though Kony Ealy has been coming along, and I still believe in Jared Allen to make a couple plays in this game). But their interior is among the best in the league, with Kawann Short and Star Lotulelei shredding the interior of every line they’ve faced this season.

The Broncos aren’t built to handle any quality defensive lines, but this one is particularly suited to hurt them. Manning doesn’t have the mobility to escape pressure in his face, and he doesn’t have the arm strength to complete a throw without being able to push his whole body through it. In short, Denver’s only hope is to keep the pocket clean.

The way to do this is through the running game. Penetration is the great weapon of interior rushers, but it can also be a vulnerability, one that Kubiak’s famous zone running scheme is designed to exploit. As the tackles of Carolina’s defense come bursting up the field, they will open lanes up behind them, lanes that CJ Anderson and Ronnie Hillman have to be able to see and exploit.

The Broncos need to break a couple big runs this way, but even that threat probably won’t be enough to slow down Carolina. The athleticism and range of their linebackers gives their defensive tackles great freedom to play with aggression, and they aren’t going to sacrifice this out of fear of runners like Anderson or Hillman. Short and Lotulelei will be coming after Manning all game long, and it may very well be too much for the veteran quarterback to handle.

Greg Olsen vs TBD

Above I mentioned that I thought the Broncos wouldn’t have any trouble staying with Carolina’s receivers, and I stand by that down here. There might not be a more lopsided possible matchup in the NFL than Denver’s cornerbacks against Carolina’s receivers, and after shutting down Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola two weeks ago, things should only be easier against Ted Ginn and Devin Funchess. They can play matchups, they can play alignment, they can do anything they want, and barring spectacular plays by Cam Newton the Panthers wide receivers will not pose any threat in this game.

Carolina’s receiving corps has been miserable all season, but they’ve managed to put together a solid passing attack. Newton deserves most of the credit for this, but we also need to acknowledge the performance of Greg Olsen. The former Bears first round pick is coming off the best season of his career, responsible for 77 receptions and 1106 yards.

The Panthers passing game revolves around Olsen, and this is one area where they are set up to take advantage of the Broncos. Denver’s defense doesn’t have a weakness, but they don’t quite have the same level of stars up the middle as in other places on their team. Brandon Marshall, Danny Travathan, TJ Ward, and Darian Stewart are all extremely good football players who would be top of the line starters on just about any other team in the league. But when surrounded by Miller, Ware, Wolfe, Jackson, Talib, Roby, and Harris, they are the clear weakness of this strong team.

I bring this stat up fairly often in my posts, but just for those of you who aren’t familiar, here’s a refresher on DVOA. DVOA is a competition adjusted metric that measures play by play success and uses this to compare the overall value of a unit on the field. Unsurprisingly, Denver finished number one defensively in this category this year. (Carolina was number two defensively, while the Panthers and the Broncos were 8^th and 25^th respectively on offense.)

DVOA also goes into a bit more depth, comparing how defenses fare against different types of wide receivers. When looking at the Broncos, it’s clear that this is a very talented defense across the board. They were fourth in the league against number one receivers, fourth against number two receivers, fourth against all other receivers, and second against running backs out of the backfield. And against tight ends, they were a lowly eighth.

Yeah, I know. Hardly a disappointment. But it’s something, and it certainly showed up against New England. The Broncos had no answer for Rob Gronkowski (few teams do), and the best tight end in the league nearly single handedly dragged the Patriots back into the game. Olsen isn’t on Gronkowski’s level, but he is in the next tier down, and he will be even more crucial than normal to Carolina’s passing game.

The most interesting part of this matchup is how the Broncos will choose to play him. The obvious solution is to use Talib, a big, physical cornerback who can body Olsen when he lines up in the slot and prevent him from creating quick separation. They would still have Harris and Roby to play on the outside, and keeping Talib closer to the middle of the field would give them an extra big body against the run. This probably won’t end up happening, and I will absolutely defer to the judgment of Wade Phillips on this one. But this is a matchup that could very easily swing the game for Carolina’s offense, and Denver has an appetizing potential solution available if they want to take it.

Carolina Panthers vs Denver Broncos

Breaking down matchups is a lot of fun, but it cannot tell a complete story by itself. If you read just the first section above, you would think that Denver’s pass rush would swarm Carolina and win them the game. If you read the next three sections, you would think that Carolina’s strength up the middle would allow them to run away with things. And if you skipped down to just this part, you would see that I gave Carolina the edge in three matchups to Denver’s one and assume that I was picking them.

Well, I am, but there’s more to it than just what I discussed above. As far as those particular matchups go, here is how I see it playing out. Denver will be able to generate pressure on Newton, and Carolina’s offense will struggle. They’re talented enough that they won’t be completely stymied, but they will have trouble to consistently move the ball. Greg Olsen and their running game will give them some life, but Denver’s defense is like nothing else they’ve faced this year, and even the highest scoring offense in the league will struggle to generate points.

The end result of this will be a low scoring game, which plays into Denver’s hands. They can’t possibly win a shootout with Carolina, but if they can keep things below 20 points for most of the game, they can pull out just enough offensively to keep themselves alive. Manning’s deep ball is probably the worst in the league, but I think he completes at least one long pass to Sanders, and their running game can stitch enough together to get them a couple scores.

In the end, I think this game will come down to two factors. The first is productivity in the red zone. Denver’s running game can be effective, but it will struggle when Carolina is able to truly stack the line, closing off the cutback lanes their zone blocking scheme relies on. The Broncos offensive line isn’t good enough to generate the sort of push needed to clear space in the red zone, and Manning doesn’t have the zip on his passes to fit them between the tight windows in Carolina’s back end. Denver will end up settling for field goals, while Carolina and Cam Newton will be their usual dominant selves in forcing their way into the end zone.

The other factor that will decide this game is turnovers. Peyton Manning has kept things remarkably clean since returning from injury, but he still had 17 interceptions on the season, and he would have had a game losing pick against the Steelers if not for a great play by Sanders to knock it loose. Sooner or later the pressure will get to him, he won’t be able to step into a throw, and he’ll float the ball into the middle of the field for someone like Keuchly or Davis to grab.

This game could easily turn into a blowout for Carolina, but I think Denver’s defense is strong enough to keep them in the game. It isn’t good enough to win it by themselves, not unless the offense plays the best game possible. In the end, Carolina's balance on both offense and defense will be too much for the Broncos to handle, and they will claim their first Super Bowl  title.

Final score: Carolina 24 – Denver 16

2015 Prediction Wrapup

I suppose I should probably wait another week for this, but for all intents and purposes the NFL season is over. There’s still one game to wrap up, and I’ll have more to say about it later this week, but right now is as good a time as any to take a broader look back at how the season went.

Just like last year, I started the season with a long list of predictions, and just like last year, I’m going to hold myself accountable for what I said. This is both to pat myself on the back and to lower my eyes in shame, going over how this season proved me right as well as how it proved me wrong. As you will probably notice, the latter category is a bit longer than the former. Because, you know, football is complete nonsense and no one knows what they’re talking about..

Just in case you’re curious, here are the links to the posts I made prior to the season:

NFC East and AFC East Preview 

NFC West and AFC West Preview 

NFC South and AFC South Preview 

NFC North and AFC North Preview 

Final Preview 

Players to Watch

What I Got Right:

Before the season I did a breakdown of each and every team, writing three paragraphs for each. The first was a best case scenario, the second was the other end of the spectrum, and the third was a player to keep your eyes on. The first two categories were hardly predictions (though they do contain some interesting thoughts if you’re interested in reading over them), so I’ll focus on the players I picked for each team.

I’m not going to get into each and every one of them, so here’s just a handful that turned out well. The Redskins were one team that I (and everyone else) got completely wrong, but one thing I nailed was predicting Jordan Reed to play a major role. Reed came on strong down the stretch, finishing with 87 catches for 952 yards and 11 touchdowns. He was the biggest non-Kirk Cousins reason for their late season surge, and at only 25 years old, he’s one of their most important pieces to build around.

I wasn’t alone in predicting breakout seasons for Latavius Murray and Allen Robinson, but they still exceeded most people’s expectations. A less obvious but still very strong pick was Mitchell Schwartz for Cleveland, who emerged this year as one of the best right tackles in the league (and he’s nearly as good on Twitter).

Perhaps my best pick was Sean Smith, who I talked about at greater length in a post a couple weeks ago. His return from suspension isn’t the only reason for Kansas City’s turnaround, but it certainly played a part in making them one of the best defenses in the league over the second half of the season. Marcus Peters got all the attention, but Smith is the best cornerback on the team, and together they are a duo that few teams in the league can match.

What I Got Wrong:

Okay, so let’s start with the players who are no longer on the teams I matched them with at the beginning of the season. Duron Carter was cut by the Colts before playing a single game (which, to my credit, I at least mentioned as a possibility). Quinton Coples was cut by the Jets and picked up by the Dolphins, and Cary Williams was released after a disastrous stretch in Seattle.

These were the bottom of the barrel, and there are plenty of other miserable examples to choose from. Alterraun Verner is still technically on the Buccaneers, but it would be a surprise to see him back next year. Former Steelers first round pick Jarvis Jones destroyed what little hope remained of him turning into an elite pass rusher, and veteran free agent Stevie Johnson provided very little for the Chargers before going down with an injury.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment was Kenny Stills. In a way Stills was the embodiment of the entire Dolphins season, an exciting talent rendered worthless by poor coaching and a toxic environment. His abilities to stretch the field were wasted with a regressing Ryan Tannehill, and the team that looked so promising five months ago has been rendered a joke thanks to a number of disappointments like Stills.

Playoffs

What I Got Right:

Pittsburgh, Denver, New England, Minnesota, Green Bay, Seattle.

Fifty percent isn’t bad. Of course, four of these were obvious, Pittsburgh barely snuck in, and I had the Vikings pegged as a Wild Card team rather than a division winner. But you’ll find predictions out there that did much worse, failing to see the strength of Pittsburgh’s roster or the potential of Minnesota’s.

Just as important were the teams that did not make it into the playoffs. I had the Jets finishing with nine wins and ending up just outside the playoffs (they actually had ten wins, but I’m counting it anyway). I didn’t buy into any of the strange hype for the Giants, the Chargers, or the Saints, and I didn’t outsmart myself going for a longshot sleeper like St Louis or Tampa Bay. I played it a bit safe with my predictions, and it came back to bite me on a couple cases, but this is one example where, over a sixteen game season, you can usually count on the law of averages.

What I Got Wrong:

Baltimore, Miami, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia

Just in case you didn’t figure it out, those are the other six teams I predicted to make the playoffs. Some of them I don’t need to say that much about. Baltimore and Indianapolis suffered disastrous seasons largely due to injuries that spiraled out of control, and two preseason Super Bowl favorites ended up missing the playoffs. I thought that this would be the season that the Falcons broke out of their funk, but after a hot start to the year, it became clear that this team is exactly what it’s shown over the past couple seasons. And the Dolphins were just a total mess, as everyone knows by this point, a young and talented team that simply could not put the pieces together.

So let’s talk about the other teams, the pair from the NFC East. Dallas probably belongs in the same category as the Colts and the Ravens, but I’m going to address them more in depth, since they will come up again a couple times down the list. I went heavy on them in my predictions, picking them to win the NFC East and make the Super Bowl while Tony Romo won MVP. Clearly that didn’t happen, and I think it is fair to put this mostly on injuries. Had they stayed healthy, they would have run away with the NFC East, and Romo could very easily have challenged Cam Newton for MVP.

Philadelphia is a different story. Philadelphia is a team I didn’t believe in at all prior to the season, until it came time to make my final picks. By then we’d seen a couple explosive preseason games from this team, and I put my faith in Chip Kelly to pull it out. Well Kelly is in San Francisco now, and the Eagles are picking thirteenth in the draft. I bought into the hype on this one, and it bit me back. Hopefully I can learn a lesson from this, and not pay any attention at all to the preseason next year.

Awards

What I Got Right:

These awards haven’t been handed out yet, but we have a good idea who will win most of them. More importantly, we know who won’t win most of them, which makes this section rather quick to get through.

I picked JJ Watt to win Defensive Player of the Year because he is the obvious candidate, and because after whiffing on Kenny Vaccaro in 2014 I didn’t feel like being bold. This one could be a contentious race, but Watt is probably the favorite end up with the award. So I’ll count this as a victory, even if the votes end up going against it.

Similarly, I’m going to give myself credit for picking Jameis Winston to win Offensive Rookie of the Year. Right now it’s down to him, Todd Gurley, and Amari Cooper, and if I had to put money on it, I’d put it on Winston. I correctly predicted that he would get better as the season went along, behind a young but improving offensive line that would slowly coalesce to give him time to launch the ball down the field. Tampa Bay put together a surprisingly competitive run down the stretch thanks to him, and he is more than deserving of the award.

What I Got Wrong:

I predicted the winners of six awards, and I’m counting two as correct, so you do the math. My Coach of the Year winner got fired (Kelly), and my MVP candidate played in only two full games. In both cases I undersold the Panthers (which we will get to, I promise you), not giving the due credit to Ron Rivera or Cam Newton.

The other two awards were a bit tougher. I was hardly going out on a limb when I predicted Vic Beasley as Defensive Rookie of the Year, and many people have singled him out as the most disappointing first year player. While his sack numbers don’t look particularly impressive, he was better than most people realize, generating consistent pressure without quite being able to take the quarterback down. He still has a bright future ahead of him, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see eight or nine sacks from him next season, after he’s added some muscle and worked more at finishing plays.

The other prediction was Comeback Player of the Year. This turned into one of the most competitive races of the season, with a number of players fighting to finish runner up to Eric Berry for the award. And while “cancer survivor” should have instantly drawn my attention, I find myself surprisingly not regretting my pick, despite what some people may think. I picked Sam Bradford to win this award, and as much criticism as he’s gotten, he wasn’t the biggest problem in Philadelphia this year. If their defense had been able to come together like I expected, if they had won a couple more games and pulled out the division, more people would realize that Bradford just finished the best season of his career. He played very well this year and, under other circumstances, he absolutely could have claimed this award.

Super Bowl Matchup

What I Got Right:

This is one I’m actually pretty proud of. I managed to correctly predict one of the two Super Bowl participants, a pretty impressive feat with sixteen teams competing in each conference for the spot. It was up and down over the course of the season, enough that I definitely didn’t expect this to actually come true, but, as I predicted, the Denver Broncos are now representing the AFC in the Super Bowl.

As for the NFC, I’m going to drop this into this part of the conversation as well. I’m not backtracking on my pick by any means, but here’s exactly what I wrote when I selected the Cowboys to make the Super Bowl.

“Picking the Cowboys to come out of the NFC could very easily be something I come to regret. I’m high on Dallas coming into the season, but I’m not going to dismiss the possibility of a total collapse. The loss of Murray could be more devastating to their running game than we expect. Their defense could struggle with the offense no longer dominating time of possession. Tony Romo could get hurt. Any number of things could sink this team’s season.”

So yeah, even though I totally blew this one, I still had some idea what I was talking about. Of course, it would be a lot easier to justify if it wasn’t for the other end of the situation, the team that made the Super Bowl after I picked them to finish with the third worst record in the league.

What I Got Wrong:

It isn’t quite as bad as I made it sound in the previous section. I picked Carolina to finish 5-11, better only than Washington and Buffalo. But I picked a lot of teams to finish 5-11. It was my go to record for teams that I thought were bad but not bad enough to end up with the first overall pick, and I ended up slotting Cleveland, Jacksonville, Houston, Oakland, and San Francisco there as well. So in reality, I only had Carolina as one of the eight worst teams in the league.

But yeah, that’s still not very good. Carolina won ten more games than I expected, and they are now the favorites heading into the Super Bowl. Their performance this year surprised everyone, but I was among the most negative voices heading into the season, far and away the biggest mistake I made all year.

Let me start by trying to explain why I was so low on the Panthers prior to the season. When I looked at Carolina, I saw a team heavily reliant on star power. They had Cam Newton on offense, Thomas Davis and Luke Keuchly on defense, and not much else. With Kelvin Benjamin gone, they had no NFL caliber receiver on their roster. Their offensive line was a mess, Jonathan Stewart’s strong push at the end of 2014 wasn’t enough to convince me he could carry the offense, and their defense didn’t have the depth necessary to be an elite unit in the league.

As it turns out, I was wrong on just about every count. The easiest way for a team to outperform expectations is to have players who come out of nowhere to become stars, and Carolina had that happen at multiple positions. Michael Oher was a disaster a year ago in Tennessee, but this year in Carolina he was one of the better left tackles in the league, one part of an offensive line that was significantly better than I expected. Ted Ginn had his ups and downs, but his speed added a deep passing element to the offense that helped open things up in the running game.

These contributions were the sort of thing that no one could have seen coming, so I don’t feel too bad for missing them. I can’t say the same about the defensive side of the ball. Perhaps I underestimated the value of players like Davis and Keuchly, but I think the biggest factor was the emergence of a couple young stars. Josh Norman had shown flashes of brilliance in the past, and in retrospect it seems obvious that he would improve again this year, even if no one could have predicted he’d become one of the best cornerbacks in the league. Similarly, Kawaan Short had been an impressive young defensive tackles over his first two seasons, and I was incorrect to dismiss him as just another body on the roster.

For the first half of the season everyone kept expecting the Panthers to reveal themselves as a fluke. And now that they’re in the Super Bowl, it seems clear that we had no idea what the hell we were talking about. This team has been the best in the league from almost start to finish, and they only need to wrap up one more game to show all of us just how wrong we were.