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.