This was the career makeup call for Peyton Manning, not that he necessarily had anything to prove. After all of those yards and all of those touchdown passes in all of those seasons for all of those teams, Manning was treated like royalty Sunday, surrounded by servants.
Physically imposing, intimidating servants – the kind who inflict even more pain than Roger Goodell’s couch from hell.
The Denver Broncos’ defense won the Super Bowl 24-10 over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. Manning was kind of along for the ride.
The Panthers and Cam Newton were Orange crushed.
Denver had seven sacks (2½ by game MVP Von Miller, who also had two forced fumbles, a pass defensed, two quarterback hits and conquered Eastern Europe). The Broncos forced four turnovers. Three were by Newton, who won’t be dabbing for a while.
It turns out the Cam Newton-takes-Carolina-to-a-title award was stomped flat by the 68-year-old-Wade Phillips-shows-his-old-man strength storyline. The Broncos and former Falcons’ defensive coordinator was out of work for a year but this season led the NFL’s best defense, both in the regular season and the playoffs.
“Coach Phillips did an amazing job,” Phillips said. “He always likes to say that mistakes are on him but the Super Bowl is on him, too.”
Manning, who also won a Super Bowl with Indianapolis, is likely on his way out the door into retirement. He wouldn’t confirm that after the game, likely because he didn’t want to steal the spotlight from Denver’s title win. He a number of family members and his former coaches were in attendance, and he allowed that it “was an emotional week and an emotional night.”
“One thing Tony Dungy always told me was don’t make an emotional decision,” he said. “I’ll take some time to reflect. I have a couple of priorities first. I want to go kiss my wife and my kids. I want to hug my family. I’m going to drink a lot of Budweiser tonight. I’m going to take care of those things first, and say a little prayer to thank the man upstairs for this great opportunity. I’m just very grateful.”
The man is pure class. He wasn’t in Hall of Fame form (13 of 23, 1141 yards, one interception, one fumble). But he wasn’t expected to be. His 39-year-old body has been breaking down and his numbers during the regular season (nine touchdowns, 17 interceptions) ranked him as one of the worst starting quarterbacks in Super Bowl history.
But he didn’t care. He knew this Denver team was about defense and he just didn’t want to screw it up. The Broncos’ pass rush carried him across the thresh hold.
This game should have been viewed in black and white. It was like a Bears-Packers game from the 1960s. It was about defense and bone-jarring hits and a Carolina team that scored 500 points during the season but looked anemic in the final game.
Denver led 13-7 despite only 117 yards in offense and Manning throwing for 76 yards with an interception, two sacks and a 42.7 efficiency rating. Unlike most of Manning’s career, this season was about a team taking him to the Super Bowl, not the other way around. The Broncos’ defense sacked Newton three times in the first half, forced three fumbles (two lost) and generally continued its reign of terror.
At times, this game seemed like three-and-out on a loop. The two offenses failed to get a first down on nine possessions in the first half. The Broncos’ lone touchdown came on a strip-sack by Miller and a fumble recovery for a touchdown by defensive tackle Malik Jackson. That made it 10-0 and Carolina fans must have wondered: “Wait, what happened to the season?”
The Panthers weren’t hit like this all season.
Cam Newton wasn’t hit like this all season.
He was constantly harassed by Denver’s defensive front and also overthrew receivers a few times, probably because he kept hearing the stampede coming.
Credit Miller and DeMarcus Ware but most of all Phillips. He was out of football in 2014. He was hired as a head coach in Denver, Buffalo and Dallas but fired each time, despite making the playoffs five of nine season. He also was an interim head coach three times, including once with the Falcons. But in typical self-effacing humor earlier in the week, Phillips said: “Yeah, I was a lousy head coach. But I’m pretty good at defense.”
It’s easy to understand why the Panthers were a confident, even cocky and arrogant bunch, coming into this week, although Carolina coach Ron Rivera believes that to be an unfair tag. (“We’ve kind of crashed the party. Not a lot of people know who we are. To draw a quick conclusion on that, based on a couple of things is disappointing.)
But Carolina players milked every moment of Saturday’s walk-through at Levi’s Stadium, After the customary team photo, Newton instructed his teammates to pose for pictures while pointing to the left, then to the right. Then another photo was taking of everyone showing their empty ring fingers.
In the final picture, all of the Carolina players struck Newton’s famous “dab” pose.
With all due respect to Rivera, doesn’t that entire exercise sound like a bit much?
It figured if Carolina was going to score, Newton would have to do this on his own, and he kind of did: two scrambles netted 23 yards and a 19-yard pass to tight end Greg Olsen on third-and-1 set up a one-yard touchdown run by Jonathan Stewart. The Broncos led 13-7 at halftime because they had to settle for a 33-yard field goal after a fourth-and-1 conversion inside the Panthers’ five was nullified by a holding penalty.
But this game was pretty much over with four minutes left when Miller had his second sack-and-strip of Miller in the game, and safety T.J. Ward recovered the ball and returned it to the Carolina four-yard-line. Four plays later, C.J. Anderson scored from the two and the Broncos led 24-10.
Newton watched from the sideline, despondent.
“We’ll be back,” he said.
Manning won’t be. He said of retirement that he’ll take the next few days to “give it some thought.” But the decision almost certainly has been made. And Denver’s defense should go in the Hall of Fame with him.
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