Denver Broncos’ Peyton Manning (18) celebrates with his son Marshall and daughter Mosley after the NFL Super Bowl 50 football game Sunday, Feb. 7, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. The Broncos won 24-10. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)Weekend winners
Peyton Manning. Duh.
Wade Phillips. The Denver defensive coordinator had a great plan and dictated the game against the best scoring offense in the league. The Broncos got to Cam Newton 21 times and recorded seven sacks. They blitzed 25 times. How good was the Denver defense? The Broncos won the Super Bowl with a record-low 194 yards of offense. That was 50 fewer than the Ravens had in 2000.
Von Miller. The No. 2 overall pick in the 2011 was the star Sunday night over the guy who went ahead of him to Carolina. His sack strip that led the to the touchdown was arguably the biggest defensive play in Super Bowl history.
Thomas Davis. Wow. He had seven tackles - second-most for the Panthers - and he played with his arm looking like thisl. Oh my.
Doritos ad people. Well-played Doritos with your two Super Bowl ads, especially the one with the ultrasound scene, which was our personal favorite of all of the $5 million 30-second spots.
Weekend losers
Cam Newton. The Panthers offered no help - the line was overpowered and none of the receivers helped - but Newton was not ready for the moment. His throws were high. His reactions were slow. His leadership will now be questioned. Plus, Newton leaving the postgame press conference in a huff was in poor taste. (One writer described it as Superman turning into the Incredible Sulk.) It was not a good look for Newton, who was named the league MVP on Saturday, and it will re-energize a lot of the criticism about him, rightly or wrongly.
Mike Shula. Want a three-plus hour tape of one coach confusing and confounding another? Rewatch the Super Bowl and watch how thoroughly the Denver defense silenced Shula's Panthers offense. Plus, the lack of adjustments after Denver's fast start was alarming. Here's a thought: Maybe give your tackle some help on Von Miller.
Super Bowl ads as a whole. Pretty unimpressed by the majority of them. Thoughts?
Hall of Fame voters. Yes, there was a crowded ballot, and Brett Favre is an absolute slam dunk. But how does Terrell Owens not get voted in and Marvin Harrison does?
Manning's moment
The utilitarian nature of Sunday's win seems juxtaposed, yet somewhat fitting for Peyton Manning.
His performance was pedestrian. His numbers were forgettable.
But the moment and the meaning are clearly as big as Manning's legacy and the lasting fact is that Manning strengthened his case as the greatest ever.
Manning was vague about retiring Sunday night after winning his second Super Bowl title. He talked of the emotion and the finality of the decision. He spoke of family and Budweiser - two things we all can support - and enjoying the moment.
We all believe it to be the end for Manning. Maybe that belief is set more to our personal want - there's little way to imagine a better exit for one of the game's great quarterbacks and one of sports all-time ambassadors.
If this is it, is Manning the greatest ever?
His numbers are the best ever. He now has two Super Bowl victories - one of only 12 quarterbacks with multiple Super Bowl wins as a starter. He has 200 career wins as a starter - the most ever - and is tied with John Elway and Terry Bradshaw with 14 playoff wins. (Tom Brady's 21 are the most postseason wins ever.)
If he never throws another pass, he leaves at the pinnacle and has made a strong case for being the best quarterback to ever play.
This and that
- Thought this was a cool Super Bow stat: The Broncos were the NFL's No. 1-ranked defense this year in yards allowed. The top-ranked defense is now 10-2 in Super Bowls since 1970.
- That's the type of number Vegas loves. The results will be in later this afternoon about how Vegas did on the Super game. Expectations are that more than $120 million was wagered on the game in Vegas, and early returns are that Von Miller winning the MVP paid off big. Miller started at 60-to-1 to win the MVP, and heavy action dropped that number to 15-to-1 before kickoff. Also, while almost 70 percent of the bets on the spread were losers with Carolina minus-5, Vegas also lost a sizable amount on Denver to win straight-up. Those bets paid $190 on $100 wager.
- As for our picks last week, we went 5-2 on our picks to finish the NFL playoffs 11-8. We missed on Carolina minus-5.5 and taking the over on 2.5 players throwing a pass (although Carolina had a double pass play called that fittingly ended in a sack). We were correct on the coin flip being tails, taking the over 5.0 combined sacks (there were 12), the total going under 45, Cam's longest run going over 12.5 yards (he had a 14-yard scramble) and over 1.5 on field goals by Denver's Brandon McManus (he had 2)
- Marshawn Lynch apparently has decided to retire and somewhat informally announced it on Twitter.
- Cavs coach Tyronn Lue says he and former Cavs coach David Blatt are cool. OK. Would like to hear Blatt's side of that after Blatt was sent packing midway through Year 2 after leading the Cavs to the Finals last year and to the best record in the East this year.
Today's question
We're all about the Super Bowl.
Does the second Super Bowl mean Peyton Manning's the best?
What was the best/worst commercial?
What's the biggest takeaway from the game?
Thoughts?