All-time Super Bowl power rankings: Which game was the best?
By James Dudko
31. Super Bowl 50: Denver Broncos 24, Carolina Panthers 10
The Broncos defense had destroyed teams all the way through the 2015 season. Yet there were still plenty believing league MVP Panthers dual-threat quarterback Cam Newton would find the answer in the big game.
Boy, were they wrong.
Denver not only dominated defensively, they put on a pass-rushing clinic to leave Newton flummoxed, battered and bruised. Edge-rusher Von Miller was Newton’s chief tormentor and deservedly scooped the MVP gong.
Yet this game was more about the old hands who earned the big prize their careers merited. Chief among them was Broncos QB Peyton Manning, no longer the strong-armed points dispenser of years past. Instead, this vintage of Manning was an injury riddled shell of his glory days hanging on by his fingernails to his last chance for one more Super Bowl.
Fortunately, the defense won it for Peyton, and even the chairperson of the Tom Brady fan club had to feel he deserved another ring.
It was also heartwarming to see DeMarcus Ware, the most skilled pass-rusher of his generation, win a Super Bowl. But Ware’s win was a mere footnote to coordinator Wade Phillips, a likeable and brilliant strategist, finally winning the big one.
30. Super Bowl XXI: New York Giants 39, Denver Broncos 20
The final score shows the Giants made easy work of the Broncos as 19-point winners back in ’87. However, the game itself contained more tension than the average Super Bowl from this era.
For one thing, the Giants needed a dramatic defensive stand at the goal-line to prevent the Broncos opening up a 10-point lead late in the second quarter.
Trailing 10-9 in the third, Giants boss Bill Parcells called a fake punt on 4th-and-1 at his own 46-yard line. It was a staggeringly bold call in the biggest game. Thankfully for Parcells and the Giants, backup QB Jeff Rutledge rewarded his coach’s bravado by sneaking for a first down and providing the catalyst for a 30-point outburst to give Big Blue a first Lombardi.