Broncos defense stifles Panthers on way to Super Bowl 50 win

If this is indeed the end for Peyton Manning, the surefire Hall of Fame quarterback goes out on top with the second Super Bowl championship of his legendary career.

But that’s mostly because the Denver Broncos’ defense spent Sunday solidifying its own legacy.

In a classic showdown of the NFL’s stingiest defense against the league’s highest-scoring offense, the Broncos won in just about every way while forcing four turnovers, tying a Super Bowl record with seven sacks, scoring a defensive touchdown and holding the Carolina Panthers to their lowest point total of the season.

With that, the best season in Panthers franchise history finishes just shy of the ultimate prize as Manning and the Broncos closed out a 24-10 win in Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium.

“We definitely had a successful season, but we let so many people down. It’s tough to get over that feeling,” Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis said. “We definitely felt like we should have won this game, but hats off to Denver. They did a really good job and they made more plays than we did today.”

After a 15-1 regular season and an impressive playoff run, the ending was certainly a sudden thud for the Panthers. Quarterback Cam Newton answered most of the questions lobbed his way with just a word or few. Cornerback and former Coastal Carolina star Josh Norman sat in silence for a bit gathering his thoughts before finally mustering a reaction.

This wasn’t the ending to the narrative the Panthers had envisioned – or really even considered.

“Great season. It didn’t end the way we wanted it to. We always talked about the team that plays the best is the one that wins the game and we didn’t do that today,” veteran safety Roman Harper said. “It just sucks to be on the biggest stage in the world and not play your best game.”

Manning, at 39 years old and no longer the game-changing quarterback he has been for most of the last 18 years, didn’t have his best game either, passing for a quiet 141 yards while completing 13-of-23 passes, throwing one interception and losing a fumble.

For that matter, Denver didn’t score an offensive touchdown until late in the fourth quarter, but it didn’t need much from its offense on this night.

An early sack of Newton by linebacker Von Miller led to a Malik Jackson fumble recovery for touchdown in the end zone as the Broncos built a quick 10-0 lead just eight minutes, 33 seconds into the opening quarter.

The Broncos would also collect an interception and two more fumble recoveries while mostly containing a Panthers offense that had scored an NFL-best 31.2 points per game in the regular season and had totaled 80 points over its first two playoff wins.

And the final turnover more or less sealed the win.

With the Broncos protecting a 16-10 lead late in the game, Miller got to Newton again for another sack while stripping the ball once more. Broncos safety T.J. Ward would eventually recover the loose ball and take it to the Carolina 4 with 4:04 remaining setting up the beginning of the end for the Panthers.

C.J. Anderson soon capitalized with a 2-yard touchdown run, Manning hit Bennie Fowler for the two-point conversion and Denver made it a 14-point game.

Denver, which allowed an NFL-low 283.1 yards per game during the regular season, gave up 315 to the Panthers and finishes the postseason having allowed just 14.67 points per game through the playoffs and Super Bowl.

Miller was named the game’s MVP with six total tackles, 2.5 sacks and two forced fumbles.

“It just shows what type of team we have,” Miller said. “It is not about offense, defense or special teams. We came together as a whole.”

While Miller helped make the statement on the field, Broncos defensive coordinator Wade Phillips did a better job of making one after the game.

“Any team that holds Pittsburgh to 16 [points], New England to 18 and Carolina to 10, when they’re all on the road, all big-time offenses, I think we’ve got to be up there somewhere,” Phillips said. “Tremendous performance all through the playoffs. We almost led the league in every category so we’ve got to say this is a special, all-time defense.”

Meanwhile, Newton, who received the NFL MVP award a day earlier, was just 18-of-41 passing for 265 yards and rushed for 45 yards while turning the ball over three times. He was under pressure much of the night and the Panthers’ receiving corps was far from sure-handed. His interception came midway through the third quarter on a ball that deflected off of Ted Ginn Jr.’s hands, and Jerricho Cotchery had earlier dropped a pretty pass down the sideline that would have set the offense up for a potential second-half touchdown.

“They just played better than us. I don’t know what you want me to say,” Newton said afterward in his longest postgame response. “They made more plays than us, and that’s what it came down to. We had our opportunities. There wasn’t nothing special that they did. We dropped balls, we turned the ball over, gave up sacks, threw errant passes. That’s it. They scored more points than we did.”

Panthers running back Jonathan Stewart came up limping early in the game and finished with just 29 yards in 12 carries while Corey Brown led the Panthers receivers with four catches for 80 yards before leaving in the second half with a concussion. Ginn finished with four catches for 74 yards.

“It felt like when we were rolling and we weren’t hurting ourselves, I thought we moved the ball pretty well,” said Panthers tight end Greg Olsen, who was held to four catches for 41 yards. “I don’t think it was a matter of us just being suffocated. I don’t know what the yardage was, but it felt like when we weren’t overcoming our own obstacles ... and once we found our rhythm it felt like we were moving the ball OK. ...

“It was just one of those days. Everybody took turns having a negative impact on the game, and you’re not going to beat good teams doing that.”

Still, it was just a six-point game down the stretch.

The Panthers’ defense had a lot to do with that.

Denver had a first-and-5 from the Carolina 12 midway through the third quarter and had to settle for another field goal as Brandon McManus converted his third of the game to make it a 16-7 lead. McManus was 3-for-3 for the game while making field goals of 34, 33 and 30 yards and was left to provide most of the Broncos’ scoring.

And early in the fourth quarter, Panthers defensive end Kony Ealy – who had intercepted Manning in the first half – stripped the quarterback and gave Carolina possession at the 50.

The Panthers eventually settled for a 39-yard field goal by Graham Gano to make it 16-10 and stay in range.

They just wouldn’t get any closer.

“I think there’s a couple times when we had opportunities and we didn’t take advantage,” Panthers coach Ron Rivera said. “When you really look at it, more than anything else the problem is we turned the ball over. I mean, we fumbled the ball when we really haven’t fumbled the ball. ... You’re not going to win football games when you make mistakes like that.”

The Panthers were vying to become the first one-loss Super Bowl champion since the 1985 Chicago Bears and were making the second Super Bowl appearance in franchise history.

Known for their fast starts this season, it was simply a different story Sunday.

It took the Panthers 18 minutes, 35 seconds to score their first points – marking the second longest it has taken them to score in any game this season – before Stewart leapt over the goal line for a 1-yard touchdown early in the second quarter to trim the deficit to 10-7 at the time.

On the ensuing Broncos possession, Norman – who totally contained Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas while holding him to one catch for eight yards – nearly picked off Manning on a weak throw. Linebacker Luke Kuechly followed with a devastating hit on Thomas to break up a pass over the middle and force a Denver punt.

And in that moment, it felt like the Panthers just may swing the momentum in the game and put their sluggish start behind them.

Instead, their next drive went three-and-out and Denver’s Jordan Norwood took off down the sideline for a 61-yard punt return – the longest in Super Bowl history – all the way to the Carolina 14.

The Panthers stuffed Denver on third-and-1 and drew a holding penalty on the offense on fourth-and-1 to force the Broncos to settle for another field goal as McManus converted his 33-yarder to make it a 13-7 game.

But Carolina wouldn’t seize any momentum with that defensive stand either.

After getting the ball to their own 49, the Panthers coughed it up as former South Carolina Gamecock Darian Stewart forced a fumble from former Coastal Carolina standout Mike Tolbert after an 11-yard run, getting his helmet on the ball to jar it free and eventually into the grasp of Broncos inside linebacker Danny Trevathan.

The Panthers’ defense would again try to help turn the game when Ealy snagged a one-handed interception five plays later at the Carolina 20 as Manning tried to find receiver Emmanuel Sanders. That likely saved some points, but two more empty offensive possessions sent the Panthers into halftime down 13-7 nonetheless.

They didn’t know it yet, but it was already too much of a deficit for them on this night.

“At the end of the day we established something, we built something here,” Ealy said. “And we’re not going to change it up, switch it up next year. That’s what got us here, our character got us here and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

As for Manning, he said after the game he still didn’t have an answer to the retirement question. He said for the time being he was going to follow some advice from Tony Dungy, his coach when he won his first Super Bowl title with the Indianapolis Colts, and not make any emotional decisions.

“You know, I’ll take some time to reflect,” he said. “I have a couple of priorities first. I want to go kiss my wife and my kids. I want to go hug my family. I’m going to drink a lot of Budweiser tonight, I promise you that. 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.”

This story was originally published February 7, 2016 at 10:40 PM with the headline "Broncos defense stifles Panthers on way to Super Bowl 50 win."