Ranking the reasons for Denver's Super Bowl 50 upset

[bababooey]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14734128/ranking-reasons-super-bowl-50-upset-denver-broncos-nfl

 

A very detailed article by the great Bill Barnwell. Here are the excerpts

 

101. The Panthers' defense

It's tough to swallow when you lose the Super Bowl by 14 points, but the Carolina defense has a lot to be proud of after delivering an exceptional effort Sunday night. While the offense misfired, made ugly mistakes, and left the defense in poor positions, Sean McDermott's unit did everything it could to keep the Panthers in the game. The Panthers didn't collapse until late in the fourth quarter, when a Cam Newton fumble gave the Broncos the ball on the 4-yard line and set Denver up for a game-sealing touchdown.

81. Cam Newton

This is the same Newton who clearly played through injuries behind a porous offensive line last year for a Panthers team that was falling rapidly out of playoff contention, the one who rushed back from a car accident to suit up for a 5-8-1 team. The one who screwed up his Florida career so badly that he had to transfer to a junior college before working his way back into becoming the first overall pick. Does anybody really think that a veteran team with Thomas Davis -- who suited up with an arm that looked like a football yesterday -- would get behind a quarterback and treat him like an unquestioned leader if he was a fraud? The idea that Newton is soft or unable to overcome adversity is unsupported by his entire career up to that one play.

60. Peyton Manning

You know what, though? If anybody ever deserves to have a playoff game in which he is carried to a victory by his teammates, as Football Outsiders noted, it's Peyton Manning. Peyton had shockingly little support from his teammates in the playoffs early in his career (http://www.footballperspective.com/guest-post-brady-vs-manning-and-playoff-support/) , when the labels which would become unfairly associated with his playoff performance began to take shape. He's still the greatest quarterback in NFL history, and now he has a second ring to cement his legacy as such.

41. Ron Rivera

The famously aggressive Rivera also passed up an opportunity to go for two after Carolina's only touchdown, when Talib went offsides on a PAT attempt. The penalty would have given Carolina the chance of converting from the 1-yard line, where they would have had the league's second-best short-yardage rushing attack against the second-worst short-yardage rushing defense. The odds are heavily weighted in favor of converting from a yard out there, to the extent that going for two would have been the obvious move. The Panthers then subsequently ran the clock bizarrely during the end of the first half, with their two-minute drill petering out around midfield. Rivera's one of the league's best in-game tacticians, but that wasn't on display Sunday.

6. Wade Phillips

Last time out, the name of the game was coverage. Phillips blitzed less frequently and sent fewer men after the quarterback on pass plays than he had in any game since the 2007 season. This time, Phillips decided to blitz Newton and see what happened. Denver pushed players into the box and sent five or more men on 51 percent of Carolina's pass plays, pressuring Newton on 44.9 percent of his attempts. ESPN Stats & Information notes that Newton was blitzed 25 times, the second-highest total in Super Bowl history, and pressured on 21 of his dropbacks, which is tied for the second-highest figure with a man who had a much happier Sunday, John Elway.

3. Fumble luck

Even more important was just how meaningful those fumbles were. The three most valuable fumbles in the game, by far, all went to Denver. That includes the two Miller stripsacks, which resulted in a fumble recovery touchdown and a four-yard drive which produced Denver's other touchdown, as well as the Trevathan recovery of the fumble at the end of T.J. Ward's interception return, which came inside the Denver 10-yard line and would have given the Panthers a first-and-goal situation. The other four recoveries were split evenly and all within 12 yards of midfield. Recovering those three key fumbles was, after accounting for game situation and field position, worth somewhere in the range of 13-14 points for the Broncos.

2. DeMarcus Ware

1. Von Miller

After it all, though, the two most impactful players on the field were the same two guys who dominated the AFC Championship Game. I didn't think that Ware and Miller could come up with something to match their career day against the Patriots two weeks ago, but truthfully, they weren't far off. Ware and Miller combined for six of Denver's 13 knockdowns of Newton. This Broncos pass rush has taken things to a new level when Denver needed them most. Their two most productive pass-rushing days in terms of knockdowns have come during the AFC Championship Game (officially 17 knockdowns) and the Super Bowl (13) after never topping 12 knockdowns in a game during the regular season.

Miller, in particular, should be in right tackle Mike Remmers' nightmares for weeks. The Carolina right tackle was overmatched by his occasional assignment, and while the Panthers did move him around a bit as part of an unbalanced line, Remmers was obliterated in pass protection. Again per Stats and Info, when Miller came after Newton from the right side of the line, his 16 rush attempts produced four sacks, two fumbles, and just 3.7 yards per play. Ware finished with four knockdowns as part of a 12-hit, three-game postseason. That's as many as Jerry Hughes had all season, and more than the likes of Brian Orakpo, even over a full season.