In honor of Peyton, here are 18 thoughts on Super Bowl 50, on the good (Denver's defense), the bad (the reaction to Cam Newton), and the ugly (the halftime), and everything else.
18.) The Panthers defense is really good, let's never forget it. That was the dominant performance ever to give up 24 points in a game. They held the Broncos to 194 yards. The two Broncos TDs were a defensive score, and another where a turnover set-them up at the 4-yard line. The Panthers sacked Manning 5 times in 28 drop-backs, and pressured him numerous other times. They played well in coverage, Josh Norman again erasing whoever he covered. Kony Ealy was a revelation. The Panthers defense came to play - sad for them no one else on the team did.
17.) CJ Anderson did not have a great game, he had quite a few runs for negative or no yardage, but in nearly all of those, it was due to bad blocking and Anderson being met in the backfield. Anderson did have a few really nice runs. He had a 22-yarder where he broke three tackles, including one from Kuechly. He had a few runs that ended up getting 5-8 yards where a normal running back, or the far inferior Ronnie Hillman, would have gotten just two yards. CJ Anderson needed to have a decent game for the Broncos to get any points on offense, and he did.
16.) I think the NFL panicked after the initial reaction to the announcement of Coldplay as the Halftime Show, which was extremely negative. It was an odd choice for a league that was trumping the ever-living-dog-poop out of this being the 50th Super Bowl. They reacted by attaching Beyonce and Bruno Mars to the affair, adding some strange R&B influences to a soft-rock back, and it really didn't work. They then tried to shoe-horn some reflection on the 50 years of Super Bowl halftime being shown on top of some random Coldplay song. What a real disaster, ending what had been a really good run of Super Bowl halftime shows.
15.) Really happy for a lot of Broncos who got their first ring, from Demarcus Ware, who is pretty clearly a Hall of Famer, to Aqib Talib, who in the end would have been a goat after a great season, to Evan Mathis, who was one of the people screwed out of a job by Chip Kelly, to Owen Daniels, who toiled for years with Kubiak in Houston as one of the more effective TEs, to even coach Kubiak, who was done wrong in Houston and came to Denver with high expectations, given a weird deal with teh QB situation and played it out really well. There are a few guys getting their second ring, but the ones getting their first are always more important.
14.) As for Le Affair Newton, I'm not sure really how to react. Obviously, it didn't look good the way he was on the podium. His curt answers and ugly walk-off will not do him any favors and provide fuel for all the people who want to get him. Still what do we want from Cam Newton? He came into the league with random scouts saying he was fake and not geniune. In his pleasure he takes from winning and now the desolation he takes from losing, that is a real person. Some people are bad losers. Is it a bad trait? Sure, but it is better for him to be real and pout than putting on a fake smile. I don't think it is necessarily a racist reaction, but some QBs would be praised for being so angry as to be rude after a loss.
13.) As for Le Game Newton, obviously Cam Newton picked a bad time to have his worst game. He was facing a defense that made Tom Brady look like a child for most of 60 minutes. He faced that defense that decided to play as well in the Super Bowl. He had receivers drop passes, his RBs do nothing and fumble. Let's not overreact to one game. He didn't play bad because the moment got too big, or because he didn't care (the idea he didn't care enough to not jump on the fumble is ludicrous), he just played bad. That is it.
12.) Let's give a shout-out to Brock Osweiler who inherited a team that was 7-2 and had a great defense, and he had to replace a legend. Osweiler wasn't always great. He did not play too well in wins against San Diego or the loss to Pittsburgh, but the two biggest wins of the regular season were the Broncos OT wins against New England and Cincinnati. All three teams finished 12-4, the Broncos got the #1 seed because they won those two games, both in OT, both with Osweiler playing reasonably well. He took the benching for Manning in stride. He never complained though the beginning of the Chargers game wasn't really his fault. He may inherit the Broncos next year, he may go somewhere else, but he played a huge part in the Broncos winning the Super Bowl.
11.) The commercials were not all that bad. There were some weird trends, like what the hell was with the amount of ads on diseases, especially with animated colons? But there were some nice ads too, like the Apartments.com, or the ad about Marmots. It has become an annual tradition to slam the ads in the Super Bowl, which is not surprising in this 'we hate everything' social media world. But let's give the advertisers credit. They tried; they are trying. There is more creativity now than their used to be 5-6 years ago. Odd to not see any Clysdales, though.
10.) Ron Rivera is a great coach. I loved what he said after the game, expressing the positive end of losing, the opportunity, comparing his team to where Denver was two years ago. He had an off game, giving up his last challenge for the gain of just seven yards, having the team slightly mis-manage the end of the first half, and then punt on 4th and 24 from the 2 yard line (statistically, that was actually the right decision). Ron Rivera and that team are still the future. I stand by everything I wrote about the Panthers. The organization is strong; the team will get stronger. They will be back.
9.) The NFL loves to pull out all the stops for these big events. They turned Super Bowl XL into a huge anniversary, despite 40 not being a huge deal. 50 is a huge deal, and the NFL treated it as such. It may have been a little much during the season, like painting all the '50' yard markers gold, but in the Super Bowl, it was worth it. To see the entire set of living Super Bowl MVPs on the field at once was amazing. I'll give Tom Brady for showing up. Only two players did not, both I'm assuming due to health reasons, and Brady would have been the only holdout. That would not have been a good look.
8.) The loss did expose that the Panthers are still a flawed team. Their weapons are still not great and if you can take out Greg Olsen, their receivers can have trouble getting separation and they often drop passes. The o-line can be had, forcing the Panthers to go max-protect more than they should. The defensive secondary is a little thin, especially following injuries. But where they made their mark, and where they will continue, is the development of players. Philly Brown had a nice game before his concussion. Kony Ealy was a monster, the only person close to Von Miler. Luke Kuechly had a relatively quiet game with eight tackles and a sack. Josh Norman is still a superstar. Get Kelvin Benjamin back, get another lineman, maybe add another weapon, and this team can start to get really scary. And for a team that went 17-2, and rolled through the NFC playoffs, that is a frightening proposition for the rest of the NFC.
7.) I've heard a lot of people say how boring this game was, that it was an awful Super Bowl. For those people, they are either Patriots fans who didn't want to see Peyton win a ring, or these are people who better not say they 'like defensive football' or complain about all the 4,000 yard passers. Guess what, guys? That was a great game. That was two defenses playing defense about as good as defense can be played. The Broncos played a dynamic offense and fought them with dynamism - tough coverage, blitzing, dominant rush. The Panthers did the same, with all their normal trappings like Kuechly blitzing, Norman blanketing and Ealy and the front dominating. The game was a 1-score affair for most of it. That was a great game. That was about as good a defensive game as we can get in the modern NFL.
And now, for the last 6, here's my thoughts on the Broncos Defense, and Peyton Manning
6.) More to come on Von Miller, but that defense from top to bottom played well. Aqib Talib had a few issues, but did make a few nice plays in coverage. Second-year pro Bradley Roby was awesome, breaking up three passes on 3rd down.The safeties were great, including Darian Stewart flying all over the field. Both Danny Trevethan and Brandon Marshall were good enough in coerage, spying and limiting the run game. And of course, that front. 13 more hits, 30 more hurries, seven more sacks. Derek Wolfe was relatively quiet, but Malik Jackson was a force with numerous run stops and the fumble recovery, and Demarcus Ware, after slowing down noticeably late last season, came to play in these playoffs. The Broncos defense did to Carolina what Seattle did to them two years ago, a sweet turnaround.
5.) So where does that defense stand-up? By points allowed, they weren't historically great for teh regular season (296 points allowed), but that number is inflated by both defensive scores allowed, a lot of turnovers, and facing the most drives in the league. THey led the league in yards per attempt alowed and yards per carry allowed, a very rare combination. They were awesome all year long, backing up one of the league's worst offenses. And they had a truly dominant playoff run, beating three of the league's best offenses, holding the Steelers, Patriots and Panthers to a combined 44 points, getting better each week. They allowed Ben Roethlisberger, Tom Brady and Cam Newton just one TD pass, combined, and sacked the lot of them 12 times. I think they are still a tad below the 2002 Buccaneers (more dominant regular season, and arguably more dominant playoffs), and 2000 Ravens (more dominant playoffs, probably most dominant of the last 20 years), but they are right there with the 2013 Seahawks that throttled Denver.
4.) Peyton Point #1: I think he's done. I fully expect him to announce his retirement in the next month or so. I fully expected him to come back when he was injured and then benched. He has an ego; not a huge one, but a distinct one. I thought he would come back and play a team that played Denver. But then, it all came correct. I do think he was at peace. There was a noticeable difference between Peyton this Super Bowl week than the last two times. He was ready to go. Then again, his lack of emotion after showing so much during the celebration gave me pause. I am of two minds. On the one hand, physically he is not there and this is teh perfect way to go. On the other, I don't want to be accept the NFL without Peyton Manning just yet.
3.) The early-2000's had three iconic defensive coordinators. Dick LeBeau, Jim Johnson and Monte Kiffin were long-time coordinators (LeBeau was the only one who tried his hand at head coach and failed miserably) and were great year in and year out. Well, it is coming close to the time where we add Wade Phillips to that list. At every stop he's been his defense has improved tremendously from his the year prior. He did great work in Houston, they were a Top-5 defense in his first season in 2011, and the Texans nearly made the AFC Championship Game with TJ Yates and QB. Wade Phillips had equally good defenses in Buffalo and was actually a better head coach than people remember. That all said, these last two games was his magnum opus. Yes, he got some great tools to play with, some amazing colors to put on the pallet, but with a beautiful creation he made. That defense never blitzed Brady and dominated, then blitzed 50% of the time against Carolina and dominated even more. He played three of the four best offenses in the NFL in back-to-back-to-back weeks and shut down them all. For a man who couldn't get an interview before the 2014 season, he may have been the biggest addition of all in the offseason.
2.) Let's talk about Von Miller. He was drafted at #2, people at that point said he could be the next Demarcus Ware. Five seasons into that career, he's right there in matching that promise. He may not have reached the level he was in 2012, when he had 18 sacks and numerous more hurries and pressure, but Miller in these last two games earned that draft position. What 2012 told us was that when Miller was on, he was absolutely dominant. After having a bad habit of going quiet in Broncos' playoff losses (he didn't have a sack against Baltimore in 2012 or Indy in 2014), Miller was amazing the last two games. 5 sacks, 7 QB hits, 2 forced fumbles and an interception. That was arguably the best back-to-back performances by a defense in NFL playoff history given who they played - and to do it, they had their best player play like the best player.
1.) Peyton Point #2 - yesterday's game does nothing for his legacy. For the people like me who already thought Manning was the GOAT QB, and thought people put way too much stock in playoff games when judging a QBs legacy, yesterday does nothing. For those that already don't like Peyton, they probably will just decide now that you have to play well in a win for the win to count. But all that said, I'm just happy he got that second ring. No one deserved another ring more. No one deserved the feeling to hold that trophy again more than Peyton. For years he came close, carrying flawed teams' whose defense (Rahim Moore) or Special Teams (Hank Baskett's onside kick, the Jets kick-off return in 2010) failed him. For once, tehy didn't. For once they dominated. There is great poetry in Peyton, in a year where he played like a sad imitation of the great man he used to be, finally getting teh support needed to win that second ring. I'll have more on Peyton the next week or two, and more after his inevitable retirement, but for one day, Peyton finally got what I wanted for him for so long.
