Broncos defense dominates Carolina to win Super Bowl 50

SANTA CLARA - Peyton Manning had a fairly miserable 2015 season, by the Pro Football Hall of Fame standards he has established. The question was, could he find the resolve and the smarts to win one final Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos?

As it turned out, the question was irrelevant. Manning had a fairly miserable Super Bowl 50, too. But his defense was so ferocious, so relentless and so consistently excellent that it didn’t really matter who was at quarterback.

The Broncos rode that defense to a 24-10 victory at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday, making Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton look utterly mortal and tackling the notion that offense wins NFL championships these days.

Denver sacked Newton six times and stripped the ball away from him twice. Those fumbles led directly to the Broncos’ two touchdowns.

“We knew we had him frustrated all day,” defensive end Malik Jackson said of Newton. “We were hitting him, we were getting him down, he was throwing incompletions. I mean, you can’t block with seven (players) and send out three (in pass patterns) with us. Just play us right, man, and they didn’t play us right today.”

It may be impossible to play this Broncos defense right. With linebackers Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware wreaking havoc off the edge, solid and active tacklers up the middle, and perhaps the NFL’s best secondary protecting against big plays, coordinator Wade Phillips’ defense could go down as one of the best ever.

Miller and Ware were especially destructive Sunday. Ware had two sacks and hit Newton two other times. Miller, named the most valuable player of the game, had 2½ sacks and twice raced around his man to separate Newton from the ball.

The Broncos officially had seven sacks - they tackled wide receiver Ted Ginn on a double-pass trick play - tying the Super Bowl record set by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1975 and the Chicago Bears in 1985.

Newton, who has brightened interview rooms all season with his flair and wide smile, was sullen after the loss. When someone asked the quarterback why he didn’t attempt to dive on his final fumble, he shrugged and offered no answer.

By the end, even Carolina head coach Ron Rivera seemed to acknowledge the inevitability of losing to the Broncos. Down by two touchdowns with 2:08 left, Rivera opted to punt on fourth-and-24 rather than hoping for a miracle first down.

The game represented a long-awaited triumph for veterans like Ware, defensive lineman Antonio Smith and tight end Owen Daniels, each of whom played at least 10 seasons before winning his first Super Bowl. Phillips gets his first ring, too, in his 38th NFL season.

Whether it will be Manning’s final game is another question. The 39-year-old quarterback left the issue of his retirement hanging.

The play of the game occurred with a little more than 4 minutes left and the Broncos nursing a precarious 16-10 lead. On third-and-9, Miller got past right tackle Mike Remmers and knocked the ball out of Newton’s hand; Newton swatted it backward, and Antioch native and strong safety T.J. Ward recovered for Denver at the Carolina 4.

Three snaps later, Panthers cornerback Josh Norman gave the Broncos a new set of downs with a holding penalty, and Vallejo native C.J. Anderson followed immediately with a 2-yard touchdown plunge to give his team a cushion.

The Broncos offense was terrible for most of the first half. Defense and special teams made up for it.

Denver was up 3-0 midway through the first quarter when Newton dropped back to pass and Miller savaged the play, hitting the QB and pulling the ball out of his hands. It bounced into the end zone, where Jackson pounced on it. It was the first fumble recovery for a touchdown in the Super Bowl since January of 1994, and it gave the Broncos a 10-0 lead.

Newton ran and passed the Panthers to a touchdown early in the second quarter, though, and Carolina seemed to have turned the tide. Then the Denver special teams made its contribution.

Jordan Norwood settled under a punt in traffic. The Carolina coverage team assumed he had called for a fair catch and tried (unsuccessfully) to avoid him; but Norwood had made no such signal. He caught the ball and took off down the right sideline. Only a fine effort by the Panthers’ Mario Addison, who dragged down Norwood at the Carolina 14, saved a touchdown.

Four plays later, the Broncos ran the ball on fourth-and-1 and appeared to get the first down, but right guard Louis Vasquez was called for holding. Denver settled for a field goal and a 13-7 lead.

After the game, Broncos wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders credited his defense and noted that his team came into Super Bowl 50 as an underdog.

“All the talk was that the Broncos were going to lose,” Sanders said. “I was watching ‘ESPN First Take’ and everybody on the left (column) saying that the Carolina Panthers were going to win, and two people picked us. Even our former teammate, Antonio Brown, chose for the Broncos to lose, which, that’s cool because, hey, that’s his opinion. But right now we’re sitting here world champions.”

You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow Phil on Twitter @Skinny_Post.