To say that there is a lot of hype surrounding Cam Newton and the Panthers right now would be the understatement of the year. And why wouldn't there be? They just finished embarrassing the Cardinals and holding on to beat a Seattle team that had been arguably the strongest team in the NFC going into the playoffs. No, there is absolutely not shortage of hype surrounding the Panthers, and they were favored to win by at least 5 points when last I checked. So why is it that I'm not so quick to buy into the idea that the Panthers are going to win let alone dominate this game?
Let's be clear that I have not yet made up my mind as to whom I believe will win the Super Bowl. I, in fact, have never made up my mind about a prediction until the time I'm done writing my analysis. Examining the statistics during the writing process has proved remarkably revealing over the past 5 seasons. Now I must admit that I too was high on the Panthers after watching their last game. Their opportunistic defense embarrassed a Cardinals offense with a nice array of weapons. Cam Newton was his usual dynamic self, and even Ted Ginn Jr. seemed to be this post-season's Jacoby Jones as his speed and athleticism led to some absolutely spectacular plays despite less-than-spectacular overall production over the course of his career. Everything seemed to just go right for Cam and company.
Let's rewind for a moment though. For most of the regular season the Panthers were not considered the best team in the league by many analysts because of their close and less-than-convincing wins to mediocre and weak teams such as the Colts, Giants, Saints (twice), and even their late season loss to the Falcons in Atlanta. One thing in common with most of these close wins and single loss to weak teams is that they took place on the road. Cam Newton, in his defense, would will his team to win late in games over these teams, but Carolina's defense simply didn't travel well. The Panthers, for example, allowed a bottom-feeding Saints team to score 38 points on their defense in New Orleans, and they also allowed the Giants to score 35 points in New York. The Panther's lone loss came on the road against a Falcons team that Carolina had massacred 38-0 at home only weeks earlier. Suddenly Cam Newton found himself in the loss column for the first time this season against a truly bad team. The Panthers had exactly one quality road win on the season, and that was 27-23 over the Seahawks in a late-game, 4th quarter comeback.
The problem with giving credit to the Panthers for beating a quality Seahawks team in Seattle is that the Seahawks, at the time, had not yet hit their stride. Seattle was 2-4 at that point, and their offense was in disarray as Pete Carroll appeared unsure as to how Jimmy Graham should be used. The Seahawks defense was also far worse as former Raven, Cary Williams, had mysteriously made his way opposite Richard Sherman as a starting cornerback in the vaunted Legion of Boom. Williams was, of course, later cut....because he's not good. The Seahawks defense got must better without him, and the Seahawks offense got much better with Jimmy Graham no longer running around aimlessly as an overpaid, misused waste of space.
The Panthers did beat the Seahawks in the playoffs, but they did so in Carolina. The Panthers, despite taking an explosive 31-0 lead at the half, somehow allowed their lead to shrink to a single touchdown late in the 4th quarter. In the NFL, a win is a win, but I simply don't think the Panthers were a better team than the Seahawks; they simply made less mistakes that day, were at home, and hadn't just played a road game in subzero temperatures less than a week before. Most importantly, the Seahawks-Panthers playoff game illustrated just how rapidly a team with reasonable talent at the wide receiver position can absolutely shred the Panthers defense.
Think back to the list of iffy teams that put up a boatload of point on the Panthers defense; each one of those teams featured an elite, dynamic receiving weapon or two. The Giants have Odell Beckham Jr., the Falcons have Julio Jones, the Saints have Brandin Cooks, and the Colts have T.Y. Hilton. Not only will the Panthers defense face Emmanuel Sanders, but they'll also face Demaryius Thomas, and that may be more than they can handle for a full 60 minutes.
Unlike the Colts, Falcons, Saints, and Giants, the Broncos boast one of the best defenses of the last decade. Their corners are elite, their pass rush is harrowing, their safeties are some of the best in the game, and their resume features wins over impressive offenses and playoff teams. The Broncos held a healthy Patriots offense to a mere 18 points in the AFC Championship, and a Bengals team with arguably the league's most complete collection of offensive weapons to a mere 17 points. They held the Packers to 10 points, the Raiders to 10 points in Oakland, and they held the Steelers to only 16 points.
The Broncos have unquestionably seen a higher level of competition this season, and beating the Steelers, Bengals, Packers, Chiefs, and sweeping the Patriots certainly gives credit to Wade Philips' defense--especially the quarterback issues the team went through during the regular season. Now Peyton Manning is healthy, rested, and ready to play what everyone knows quite well will he his final game as a Bronco.
If it seems as I'm leaning towards the Broncos at this point, just understand that I'm, instead, explaining all of the factors that have swirled about my mind this week that make me leery of simply just anointing the Panthers as Super Bowl Champions based on one home win over a team missing its best defender, headed by a quarterback who has won exactly one playoff game in his long NFL career. The outcome of this Super Bowl isn't about regular season records, and it's certainly not going to be about how many points each team scored the week before. I've heard too many radio journalists base their Super Bowl prediction on the fact that the Panthers beat their opponent the previous week by a much greater margin than Broncos beat the Patriots. That is the oversimplified type of pseudo-analysis that makes me wonder just how some of those people earned their credentials. This game is UNQUESTIONABLY about positional matchups, and it is most CERTAINLY about rest, personnel health, and homefield advantage. We truly won't know until we examine these factors and crunch the numbers, so let's take a look at the stats and matchups!
SUPER BOWL 50 STATS AND PREDICTION
The question of Peyton Manning's health has been a major issue since last season. Manning's
body has, for the past two seasons, failed him numerous times. Not only has he had issues with nerve damage in his neck leading to his throwing arm, but Peyton Manning has also dealt with torn fascia in one of his feet and major issues of soreness since Week 1 when he was sacked by the Ravens 5 times. After that game, in fact, Peyton Manning was interviewed by a reporter who described Manning requiring someone else to untie and remove his shoes because he was no longer capable of doing so after the game.
There's no question that Manning's ability to put any serious zip on the football has diminished to a great degree, but he, nevertheless, put up an impressive first half performance against a Patriots defense that was quietly elite this season. Manning made fairly impressive starts nearly every time he's had extended rest before a game--the Super Bowl will be one of those times.
Judging statistics for this game will be fairly complex. We will first need to throw out any statistics from games the Panthers played at home as they will be all the way across the continental United States for the Super Bowl. The next thing we'll need to do is examine how the Broncos have fared on the road because although this is referred to as a home game because of comparative geographic proximity, the Broncos are NOT playing in Denver. From there, it would be wise to examine how the Panthers have done against elite defenses this season, and it would be prudent to examine how they've fared against teams with elite wide receivers, and we'll examine how the Panthers' receiving weapons might match up against the Broncos defenders.
One of the major factors that helped the Broncos beat the Patriots was the edge rushing duo of Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware. This elite tandem exploited the fact that the Patriots had weaker offensive tackles, and they disrupted a quarterback whose offense relies heavily upon the timing of passes. Cam Newton is larger, stronger, and far more mobile than Tom Brady, but he also has a left tackle who has graded out fairly poorly this season, Michael Oher. It is because of Newton's elusiveness and athleticism that Oher's poor grades against pass rushers have gone relatively unnoticed, but pro football focus has graded him out quite poorly this season.
I was actually surprised when I examined which top 10 defenses the Panthers faced and defeated. Obviously the Panthers beat the Seahawks twice, and they ranked 2nd in yards allowed and first in points allowed. The Panthers also beat the the Texans and the Cardinals who finished the season tied at 7th in points allowed. Carolina also beat the Buccaneers twice, and the Buccaneers produced a top 10 defense this season in yards allowed, but they ranked 26th in points allowed which means they're totally irrelevant to this discussion. The Cardinals, as I explained in my NFC Championship prediction, were simply not the same team without Tyrann Matthieu. They went immediately from an elite defense to a defense that allowed 28 points per game leading up to the playoffs. The pool of elite defenses the Panthers faced has functionally shrunken to just two teams: the Seahawks and Texans. The Panthers did beat the Texans, but only by a single touchdown, and the Texans had essentially no serious offense at that point in the season which made things significantly harder for their defense.
We're essentially left with the Seahawks when we want to examine defensively elite teams the Panthers faced. Both the Panthers and the Rams seem to have the Seahawks figured out. In the case of the Rams, it's a total mystery to me as to how they were able to sweep the Seahawks with such little talent at their disposal, but playing divisional foes twice a year often leads to familiarity that can defy conventional wisdom about the better team winning the game. In the case of the Panthers, they most certainly do NOT face the Seahawks twice a year, but they did so this year with one regular season game and a rematch in the playoffs. I wondered how it could be that the Panthers could utterly blank the Seahawks in the first half of the game considering what I say the Seahawks offense do to so many other teams in the second half of the regular season. Then it dawned on me: the Panthers defense is quite used to containing an incredibly mobile quarterback with a cannon of an arm and limited number of strong receiving weapons because that's exactly what they see in practice with Cam each week. I understand that the strategy of the Panthers was to attempt to run out the clock in the second half of their playoff game against the Seahawks after going up 31-0, but it was a little alarming that Carolina scored not a point in the second half and allowed their lead to dwindle to a single touchdown.
Now scoring production for the Panthers on the road this season (29 points per game) didn't drop off much from their scoring average of the entire regular season (31 points per game), but their defense didn't travel nearly as well. Carolina's defense allowed an average of 21 points per game during their 8 road games, and that isn't far off from their 19 points allowed per game of the entire regular season. What was far more alarming, however, was how the poorly the defense held up against teams with experienced, successful quarterbacks and dynamic receiving weapons such as the Falcons, Giants, and Saints. I'll give the Panthers credit for beating the Giants and Saints on the road (they lost on the road to the Falcons 20-13), but the fact Carolina's defense could allow such flawed teams to put up such incredible points totals should be cause for alarm for those judging the Panthers on what they've seen thus far in the playoffs. It certainly doesn't bode well for the Panthers that the Colts took them into overtime in Charlotte. I've heard all week about how amazing the Panthers defense is, but I simply can't see it. There have been enough games against bad teams wherein that defense has allowed a furious amount of scoring in the second halves of games. The Seahawks game, of course, was a good example, and the Seahawks were literally the only road team the Panthers have faced all season that finished with a serious winning record...interesting.
Ok, it seems as though I've simply been rambling in some sort of attempt to discount the winning and success the Panthers have enjoyed this season, but it's imperative that people understand exactly how weak the Panthers' schedule was in 2015 if they want a realistic idea of what to expect. Now it's time to move on to the Broncos offense. Many people believe the Broncos simply won't be able to score enough points in this game to win, and they might be correct. The Broncos, for example, scored only 20 points last weekend in their home win over the Patriots. The question, however, is whether or not Peyton Manning is actually better in Denver. Playing a mile above sea level in a cold environment is not exactly ideal for a quarterback who spent most of his career playing in a dome. On the road this season, Peyton Manning averaged 283 passing yards and 1.6 touchdowns per game. At home, however, Manning threw an average of 222 passing yards and a meager 0.6 touchdowns per game. It must be noted that I did not figure Manning's two home games were Brock Osweiler saw the vast majority of snaps and Manning either only played the very beginning of the tail end of the game. Regardless, Peyton Manning simply didn't perform well in Denver this season even if his team won.
Well Peyton Manning is in luck; he's not playing the Super Bowl in Denver. The Super Bowl is in San Francisco, and Manning is quite familiar with the bay area after spending the last several years playing the Oakland Raiders twice a season. Speaking of the Raiders, they're actually a great example of a team that while not nearly as good as the Panthers, had similar offensive attributes. The Raiders have a great, mobile, young quarterback with a great arm and talented young receivers. Derek Carr showed against the Steelers, Ravens, Chargers, and Jets that they could put up well over 30 points even on some top defenses. The Broncos were a different story. Their defense held Carr and company to 10 an 15 points during the two meetings of the teams in 2015. The Broncos also faced a mobile Aaron Rodgers and held the Packers to an embarrassing 10 points. How did they find such defensive success against mobile quarterbacks? That's simple: speed.
The speed of the Broncos' pass rush is probably the best in the league. Von Miller is sensationally fast, and easily capable of running down just about any quarterback. Couple speedy pass rushers with top notch corners and safeties and you get a recipe for sacks. The first time the Broncos played the Raiders they sacked Derek Carr 4 times. The Broncos sacked Aaron Rodgers 3 times when they played the Packers, and they sacked Derek Carr 3 more times even in their 15-10 loss to the Raiders when Brock Osweiler started for Denver later in the season. It's safe to say that mobility doesn't scare a defense that possesses both speedy edge rushers and shutdown corners, Aqip Talib and Chris Harris Jr.
Just how healthy are the Broncos players at the moment? Not a single player is listed as questionable on their injury report, but then against that goes for the Panthers too. Since injuries shouldn't be a major factor, we'll have to look more at positional matchups. Something that strikes me when looking at the Panthers depth chart is just how little they have at wide receiver. The starting wideouts are Ted Ginn Jr. and Corey Brown, and neither one had anywhere near 1000 receiving yards this season (Ginn had 739 and Brown had 447). It's not even as though Ted Ginn and Corey Brown were some sort of matchup nightmare. Ginn measures at 5'10", and Brown stands at 5'11"; it's so difficult to imagine Aqip Talib or Chris Harris Jr. having any trouble with either. Tight end, Greg Olsen, has been the Panthers' best receiving weapon this season with 1,104 receiving yards this season, but he'll almost certainly see double teams most of the day. It appears as though it'll be easy for the Broncos to take away most of the Panthers receiving weapons, but what about the Panthers rushing attack? The Panthers are, after all, the second ranked rushing team in the league. The Broncos, not to be outdone, allowed an incredible 83 rushing yards per game to finish 3rd in the league.
PREDICTION
I realized that I could sit here and ponder statistics until I could barely open my eyes anymore, but Peyton Manning's limited number of games played this season and the Panthers' poor road strength of schedule mean much of the statistics available simply aren't predictive for the Super Bowl. I simply can't get past utter lack of serious receiving weapons at Cam Newton's disposal. Carolina has not one wide receiver that should give any of the Broncos corners trouble. Greg Olsen will likely be limited by the likes of T.J. Ward, and the Broncos fierce rush defense should limit Jonathan Stewart. As for Cam Newton, he'll feel a level of pressure to which he's not accustomed, and his defense will struggle against dynamic receivers such as Emmanuel Sanders and DeMaryius Thomas. The Broncos limited and beat a phenomenal Patriots team last week, and the Patriots offense was simply better and more stacked with weapons than that of Carolina. Peyton Manning isn't what he used to be, but he knows quite well that this is his "last rodeo." He'll hold nothing back make great adjustments to find soft spots in a defense that gave up 35 points to the Giants, 38 points to the Saints, and even 29 points at home to a Packers team that the Broncos limited to just 10 points. I love Cam Newton's enthusiasm and he was truly the league's MVP this season, but I don't know that he has the supporting cast to go on the road and put up a high-scoring performance on the best defense in the league. Peyton Manning is well rested, and he'll be playing in a city and on a day where it will be 66 degrees and sunny at kickoff. That's the type of weather in which Manning simply dominates. The Panthers only have one quality corner, but the Broncos have more than one quality receiving weapon. I learned not to bet against defense in Super Bowls after the Seahawks annihilated the Broncos in the Super Bowl two years ago. Now the Broncos are a team with an elite defense, and the Panthers have shown serious defensive vulnerability, especially in the second half of the season. I know the Panthers could totally make a fool out of me on this one, but I'm going with the superior defense with the wily old veteran quarterback playing his final game.
PREDICTION: BRONCOS 27-24
No one gets predictions correct all of the time, but the hope is that by examining as many factors as possible and explaining your thought process, at least you justify your prediction with reasoning and statistics. Regardless of who wins, this should prove a seriously exciting Super Bowl. It would be nice to see Manning ride off into the sunset after a final victory, but I can't say I wouldn't also love to see offensive fireworks by Cam Newton--the guy just flat out makes plays. Enjoy the game, everyone.
OH YES, AND AS ALWAYS
GO RAVENS!! (GET HEALTHY!)
