The Super Bowl is over, and we now know what happens when an irresistible force (the Panthers) meets an immovable object (the Broncos). It stops.
We know a few other things, too. First, Peyton Manning is the first starting quarterback in history to win Super Bowls with two different teams. He beat the Bears as a Colt, and he beat the Panthers as a Bronco.
The Broncos didn’t score an offensive touchdown until there were only about three minutes left in the game. C.J. Anderson ran it in, and he was pushed over the goal line by former Boise State player Matt Paradis, who started at center for Denver. The Broncos still would have won if they hadn’t scored that last touchdown, and they would have become the first team in Super Bowl history to win without scoring an offensive touchdown. Besides the 2015 Broncos, the only other teams to win a Super Bowl with only one offensive touchdown are the 1968 Jets and the 2002 Patriots.
Denver won the game with a total of 194 yards of offense. That’s the lowest amount ever for a Super Bowl winner. The previous low was 244 yards, set by the 2000 Baltimore Ravens.
Carolina trailed 13-7 at the half, but before yesterday they hadn’t trailed by more than three points at halftime all season. That happened twice, and they won both games. In fact, this was the only game all sseason in which the Panthers never led. Their ten points was Carolina’s lowest score of the year.
The Panthers were 15-1 in the regular season. Five teams have won 15 or more games in the regular season since 1990, and none of the five won the Super Bowl.
Denver tied a Super Bowl record with seven sacks. They also forced four turnovers. Since 1980, 19 teams have committed at least three turnovers in the Super Bowl. All 19 lost.
The Broncos became the ninth NFL franchise to win at least three Super Bowls. Pittsburgh has won the most with six. Yesterday’s game was Denver’s eighth Super Bowl, tying them in first place with the Patriots, the Cowboys and the Steelers.
Manning is the oldest quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl at 39. He broke the record of John Elway, who won with the 1999 Broncos at age 38. And Manning and Newton had the largest age gap between starting Super Bowl quarterbacks, Newton is 26, meaning there’s 13 years’ difference.
This was the first Super Bowl ever to match quarterbacks who were both drafted number one overall. And it was the first Super Bowl to match the number one overall pick from a single year against the number two overall pick. The only player chosen before eventual Super Bowl MVP Von Miller in 2011 was Cam Newton.
Now let me correct something we thought we knew yesterday. At least twice during the broadcast, Jim Nantz of CBS stated that Gary Kubiak was the first coach to win the Super Bowl with a team for whom he also had played. That’s not quite correct. Both Mike Ditka (Bears) and Tom Flores (Raiders) did that, too. But Kubiak is the first coach to take a team to the Super Bowl after going to the Super Bowl with the same team as a player.
By the way, it was never Kubiak’s fault that he went to the Super Bowl as a player. He spent his entire career as a backup to John Elway. In nine total seasons, he started five total games.
