I can’t really explain it, but here we are, just days from the biggest sporting event of the calendar year, and I’m having trouble getting “super” excited.
Even if you aren’t a fan of the NFL, even if you haven’t watched a down of football all season, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to tune in on Sunday and watch the Panthers play the Broncos in Super Bowl 50; it’s just kind of what America does.
The two best teams on the planet going at it, a tonnage of star power, all the trappings of pageantry and excess that have come to define the NFL, and here I sit, overwhelmingly ambivalent about it all.
On the surface, it doesn’t make much sense.
If you’re looking from a dramatic narrative, this Super Bowl has it. I mean, just look at the quarterbacks. On one side, you have Peyton Manning, the most prolific passer in the history of the NFL, playing in what may be his last football game. If Peyton represents the NFL’s past, his counterpart on the Panthers, Cam Newton, is clearly its future. At just 26 years old, Newton has put together an MVP
season this year and is well on his way to becoming the face of the league, like Manning—and New England’s Tom Brady— were before him.
On the surface, can you ask for a more compelling storyline? The aging gunslinger returns to town for one final draw-down with the pistolero who grew up idolizing him; it’s the stuff of Hollywood.
Unfortunately for Manning, this story won’t likely end with him riding off triumphantly into the sunset.
Conventional wisdom has long held the Super Bowl as a game destined to be something of a disappointment. With two weeks of hype leading into the big game, it’s not hard to see why; anything less than a game that is decided in the final minutes couldn’t possibly live up to the hoopla surrounding the event.
But we’ve gotten kind of spoiled for the last decade or so in terms of Super Bowl finishes. Between the Giants’ wins over the Patriots in 2008 and 2012, the Steelers’ 27-23 win over the Cardinals in 2009, the epic blackout game between the 49ers and the Ravens in 2013, and last year’s game-winning interception to cement another Lombardi Trophy win for the Pats, these games have been tremendously competitive. The last real dud, so to speak, was two years ago when Seattle put a 43-8 whoopping on—you guessed it—Peyton and the Broncos.
I mean, that game was out of hand by the time the coin-flip was over.
And, like it or not, that’s how I see Sunday’s game unfolding too. Manning was great once, but he no longer has the arm strength to make the big downfield throws. Denver’s ground game is largely ineffective, too. Sure, the Broncos have a formidable defense, one that was able to pin its ears back two weeks ago and knock Tom Brady around, but then again, Brady isn’t a 6-foot-5, 250-pound phenom with a rocket arm and wideout speed like Newton.
Between Cam’s brilliance, a tough stable of running backs and a Carolina defense that’s every bit as talented as Denver’s, it’s tough to see a scenario in which this game turns out to be competitive.
I’m still going to be tuning in, regardless. It’s Super Bowl Sunday, after all, and crazier things have happened. Maybe Manning can turn back the clock one last time and turn in a Super Bowl performance for the ages. Maybe the Broncos’ pass rushers can disrupt Newton’s rhythm and somehow limit the damage he can do with his legs. Maybe Panthers’ coach Ron Rivera’s risk-taking blows up in Caro lina’s face in a big spot and gives Denver a chance to win it late.
It’s unlikely, but the idea that we might see something unexpected is why we watch this game in the first place.
Let’s just hope the fireworks aren’t limited to the halftime show.
