Zimbio
Cam Newton and Peyton Manning
What do you get when you combine the most overhyped sporting event on the planet with its golden anniversary? As the countdown to Super Bowl 50 begins, we’re about to find out. Get ready for “Fifty Best” lists, from heroes and goats, to coaches and commercials. Here are merely five angles — and a prediction — to kick off your two-week journey to the actual kickoff.
What a career sunset for Peyton Manning. Instead of tabulating the latest figures in his career records for passing yards (71,940) and touchdowns (539), Manning will start his fourth Super Bowl just two months shy of his 40th birthday. It feels appropriate, a man in the conversation for the best quarterback in history playing in the Super Bowl’s 50th showcase. Among the six other quarterbacks to start at least four Super Bowls, five won at least two championships. (Jim Kelly lost all four of his starts with Buffalo.) A win over Carolina would make Manning 2-2 in the big game and would equal the grand finale of his current boss, John Elway, 17 years ago. Presuming, of course, this will be Manning’s final game.
Opposing Manning will be the favorite for this year’s MVP award, Panther quarterback Cam Newton. Remarkably, Newton will be just the third Heisman Trophy winner to start behind center in the Super Bowl. (Roger Staubach started four Super Bowls for Dallas and Jim Plunkett two for the Raiders.) The contrast between the two quarterbacks couldn’t be greater. In addition to passing for 3,837 yards and 35 touchdowns this season, Newton rushed for 636 yards and 10 touchdowns. In 17 years as an NFL quarterback, Manning has rushed for a total of 667 yards.
Carolina is just the third team to reach the Super Bowl after a 15-1 regular season. The 1984 San Francisco 49ers and 1985 Chicago Bears won blowouts to raise the Lombardi Trophy. Three 15-1 teams since then didn’t even reach the Super Bowl (the 1998 Vikings, 2004 Steelers, and ’11 Packers). Carolina had the advantage of playing in the weak NFC South — a division they won in 2014 with a 7-8-1 record — but 18 total wins in a season would put this club among the all-time elite.
The NFL playoffs are getting more predictable. For the fourth time in seven years, the AFC’s and NFC’s top seeds are meeting in the Super Bowl. Before New Orleans faced Indianapolis after the 2009 season, 15 years had passed between such a matchup. There have been a total of 11 such clashes in the Super Bowl, with the NFC winning eight.
The only historical stat you’ll really need: The NFC is 8-4 in Super Bowls played the year of a U.S. presidential election. (We’re counting the pre-merger Packers — winner of Super Bowl II in 1968 — among NFC teams.) The NFC representative has won six of the last seven such Super Bowls. But here’s a catch: In three of the four election-year Super Bowls won by the AFC team, a Republican won the White House.
My pick? My heart tells me the Peyton Manning Story ends with confetti, the Lombardi Trophy, and one last pizza (or insurance) commercial. But I saw what the Carolina defense — led by All-Pros Luke Kuechly and Josh Norman — did to a previously explosive Arizona offense. Newton’s versatility will be valuable against Denver’s top-ranked defense, and I think just enough to earn the Panthers their first championship.
Carolina 20, Denver 13
