Santa Clara, Feb 8: A Super Bowl adorned with glitz and gold was dominated by black and blue.
Sunday's game featured 12 sacks, six turnovers and only two offensive touchdowns as the Broncos defense squelched league MVP Cam Newton and led the way to a 24-10 win, the third Super Bowl title for the franchise.
Denver's only offensive touchdown came on a four-yard drive with 3:08 remaining after linebacker Von Miller knocked the ball from Newton's hand and the Broncos recovered. The Broncos’ 194 yards on offense were the fewest ever by a Super Bowl winner.
Miller, who along with fellow outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware dominated the AFC Championship two weeks earlier, set the tone on the Panthers' second drive when he slipped past the protection and forced a Newton fumble that defensive lineman Malik Jackson recovered in the end zone.
Miller finished with 2 1/2 of the Broncos' six sacks, two forced fumbles and was named the game's MVP.
“I’m going for the ball every time,” Miller said afterward. “That’s the type of football player I am. If I was a basketball player, I’d be a three-point shooter. I’d go for the dagger. That’s what (defensive coordinator Wade) Phillips has been preaching to us all year. We need the ball. We need turnovers to win the game. We were able to get them today.”
The NFL's 50th Super Bowl aspired to showcase the game's massive popularity, and Levi's Stadium on Sunday was streaked with gold -- on towering billboards outside of the stadium, on the LED signboards that ringed the inside of the facility and on the field itself.
Newton never shied away from the splendor. In fact, he managed to match the Super Bowl showiness, arriving in California last week wearing gold and black Versace slacks -- retail, $849 -- and going through pre-game warm-ups Sunday in glittering, gold cleats and a black jersey emblazoned with a gold Superman logo.
The game, however, didn't exactly sparkle and neither did the quarterbacks. Newton, larger than life in the run-up to the game, was sullen and muted afterward.
The contest included 18 penalties -- three of them by Denver cornerback Aqib Talib -- and a 44-yard field-goal attempt by Carolina's Graham Gano that bonked off the right upright. Both starting quarterbacks had fewer than 100 passing yards at halftime and there were several slips and stumbles on the stadium's notoriously soft surface, which had players from both sides changing into longer cleats in the first half.
Early on, Newton's veteran counterpart, Peyton Manning, seemed to have the advantage.
While Newton dealt with nerves and fired passes over the heads of receivers, Manning directed a 10-play scoring drive on Denver's opening possession, which ended with a 34-yard field goal.
But Manning, too, mostly struggled in a game dominated by the defenses. He completed just 13 of his 23 pass attempts for 141 yards and threw his first interception of the postseason.
Carolina defensive end Kony Ealy intercepted Manning once, sacked him three times and forced a fumble. If the Panthers had won -- they were down only six points late in the fourth quarter -- it's likely Ealy would have been crowned MVP.
Denver's longest play of the game came not on offense but on special teams when in the second quarter Jordan Norwood returned a punt 61 yards, which broke the Super Bowl record, 45 yards, the 49ers' John Taylor set in 1989.
Former 49er Colin Jones appeared to interfere with Norwood as the ball arrived and his Carolina teammates looked as if they expected the play would be blown dead.
But Norwood kept running until he was tripped up at the Carolina 14-yard line. The play set up the second of Brandon McManus' three short field goals.
Miller, meanwhile, was drafted one selection after Newton, the No. 1 overall pick in 2011, but outshined him on the sport's biggest stage.
“He has been unbelievable in these playoffs,” Broncos general manager John Elway said. “He has got something with Cam. He likes to get after Cam. He did today.”
In back to back games against arguably the game's two best quarterbacks, Newton and the Patriots' Tom Brady, Miller had five sacks, 11 tackles, two forced fumbles and an interception.
He even managed to upstage his famous teammate, Manning, in what could have been the quarterbacks' final game. Manning admitted to being emotional during the two-week buildup to the game and having a hard time getting through a pep-talk speech to teammates on Saturday night.
But he stopped short of declaring that Sunday's was his final contest, saying that former Colts coach Tony Dungy gave him some advice during the run-up to the game: Don't make an emotional decision.
"You know, I'll take some time to reflect," he said. "I have a couple of priorities first."
Manning, who is four years removed from neck surgery and one month away from his 40th birthday, has been wobbly all season. And he missed six starts in 2015 with a foot injury.
The Broncos instead leaned on their top-ranked defense, which led the league in yards allowed and sacks in the regular season and which held its playoff opponents to an average of 14.7 points.
"This game was like the season has been," Manning said. "It tested our toughness, our resilience and our unselfishness. It's only fitting it turned out this way."
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