D-Day: Denver blitzes Carolina into submission

It turns out you can’t win the Super Bowl with Ted Ginn Jr as your number one wide receiver.

The case for the Denver upset was easy to make, and it was made in this space last week (just before a comfortable Panther victory was predicted, of course).

The blueprint was simple: Carolina’s skill position players are so weak that Denver will be able to cover them one-on-one, and with that luxury they’ll be able to generate a consistent pass rush against Cam Newton.

They’ll clog the run because that’s what they do and their special teams advantage will give them better field position. The offence just has to be ‘not a disaster’ but the Broncos will be able to lean on the other two phases to generate points.

It was a blueprint that seemed too simple to ever manifest in reality. Surely, the Panthers would see this and with two weeks to scheme they would make adjustments.

They would utilise Newton’s dynamic talent, perhaps the most devastating talent in the sport, and Greg Olsen’s advantages against Denver’s coverage men to manufacture offence. They would add wrinkles and they would figure it out.

Nope.

After the game, a 24-10 romp that seemed set on its course from Carolina’s second drive, Denver players were laughing to themselves about how predictable the Panthers were on offence. “We read them like a book,” Broncos safety TJ Ward said.

Super Bowl 50 starts and ends with the concept of ‘green dog blitzing’. The Panthers are a team that often max protect with extra linemen to compensate for their athletic deficiencies, which puts a tactical onus on the defensive coordinator.

Do you drop those men into coverage to give your defence a numerical advantage in the secondary? Or do you use them to augment your pass rush?

Time and time again, Wade Phillips utilised his extra men as blitzers, green dog blitzers, and as a result Newton played the entire Super Bowl surrounded by flames. The additional blitzers meant that the extra offensive linemen couldn’t double-team Denver’s edge rushing merchants of chaos Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware – they had their own men to deal with.

Miller and Ware were the two most influential players on the field and they got inside Newton’s pocket and then inside his head. By the end of the game Newton was rattled – he was finished. Seemingly, he remained rattled all the way through the end of his post-game press conference.

In a way, it’s a shame the way Super Bowl 50 turned out. This was Newton’s year, the season where he blossomed into the game’s pre-eminent player. The Super Bowl was supposed to be his coronation – not a platform for regicide.

I watched the game in a bar in Buenos Aires surrounded by a group of clueless Americans who told the locals in very slow, deliberate English that the reason Denver won was because they had the much better quarterback. I felt like telling them that 2009 was seven years ago.

Peyton Manning was awful yesterday but he was awful with a purpose. He had nothing left but he knew it – his terribleness was performed with an almost admirable self-awareness and restraint.

Newton’s awfulness was much louder, even though he played a better game than Manning. It’s not his fault that his receivers could never get open and his offensive line was a debacle. But at the same time, this should have been predictable.

Newton’s receivers have never been good and Mike Remmers and Michael Oher, who have been playing above themselves all season, never had a chance against Miller and Ware.

All day Newton needed to get the ball out much quicker than he did. Fifteen of Denver’s points were set up by sack fumbles where Newton never saw the pressure coming. Those points were the difference in the game.

By the game’s conclusion Newton was a meme waiting to happen, and oh boy, did they happen. His decision not to dive for the final fumble was as bizarre as it was indefensible, but it doesn’t make him the spineless human being that Twitter carved him out to be.

Let’s not forget, the man did come back from a car crash last year to play for a 5-8-1 team. The indecision wasn’t a reflection of Newton’s manhood – it was a testament to the all-conquering performance of Denver’s defence. All day they won the physical battle and with Newton’s final failing they proved that they’d won the mental one too.

Newton’s reputation was tarnished yesterday, although hardly irreparably, and nobody should kid themselves that Manning’s improved other than in the primitive Super Bowl tally. The quarterback who looks the best after yesterday is Tom Brady.

Newton’s progressive mental breakdown yesterday only reinforces how incredible Brady’s final drive was a fortnight ago. Where Cam was saving his worst for last, Brady somehow found his best at the game’s end. Newton was the MVP this season and deservedly so, but this is still Brady’s league until Newton shows his worth in February.

As a final note, the game’s aesthetic, or brazen lack of it, should be addressed. No, it was not a fun game to watch. Denver won despite manufacturing effectively six points of offence – the other 18 were the product of its defence and special teams.

Newton, perhaps the game’s most aesthetically attractive player, was made to look ugly. But there was something delightful about the might of Denver’s defence.

Two years ago Seattle’s defence destroyed Denver with a flurry of knockout punches to the head. That defensive performance was a series of tequila shots – swift, immediate, and so cruel that it was hard to swallow.

The Denver D yesterday was more nuanced – a fine wine that prospered on subtleties, gradually leveraging its one clear tactical advantage over the Panthers to victory. There was no singular knockout punch; it was a victory by decision – a unanimous decision by the game’s end.

The game’s two best players were beaten the past two weeks and in the process the game’s best team emerged as the champion. It might not have been pretty, but it was certainly deserved.