Who Should I Cheer For in the Super Bowl? Reasons to Love and Hate the Broncos and Panthers

We’re less than a week away from Super Bowl 50 and a potentially excellent defensive showdown.  Broncos and Panthers fans have plenty to be hopeful about, but for that other 94%-ish of fans who’ve watched their own teams go down in somewhere between predictable and agonizing fashion this year, you’re probably still on the fence about who to adopt until September finally rolls around again. Fear not, dear reader! Here’s the fair and balanced Lady Blitz guide for you to weigh your options with Reasons to Love and Hate the Broncos and Panthers:

Reasons to Love the Broncos

Orange Crush 2.0 - If you didn't already know how incredible the Broncos' defense has been this season, the way they dismantled Tom Brady and the Patriots in the AFC Championship should leave no doubt that they are special.  That day, they were the mama grizzly to Brady's revenant, mauling him for an NFL season-high 20 knock downs and generating four sacks and two turnovers in the process.  Although it was among Denver's best performances this season, this was also par for the course for a unit that has more than carried its weight all year long to get here.  This season, the Broncos led the league in points and yards allowed, sacks, and yards allowed per rush and pass.  They've terrorized many an offensively talented team and have a bevy of Pro Bowlers like Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware and Aqib Talib leading the way.  It's nice to see Ware in particular have a shot at a ring after being mired in the no-man's-land of Jerryworld for so long.  As good as the conference championship was for these guys, they'll probably need something even better to stop the Panthers next Sunday.  Nevertheless, they've given us plenty of reasons to believe that defense wins championships this season, and they'll be pinning their ears back with everything they've got in this game.

The Sheriff's Ride Into the Sunset - I think this is the fourth straight year I've failed to predict Peyton Manning's demise as he adds another candle to the birthday cake.  Based on Manning's own recent comments and a pending banned substance investigation, it seems the end is actually nigh for the five-time MVP now preparing for his fourth Super Bowl appearance.  No. 18's struggles to rebound from recent injuries and play to his old form are well-documented at this point, and that elusive second ring has to be his primary if not sole motivation for persisting through miserable pain at half speed.  He's got an uphill battle against the punishing Panthers defense to say the least, but there's a sizeable portion of the population out there that wants to see Manning get a storybook ending to a legendary career.  From Air Bud to Hoosiers, we've been conditioned to root for the "Aw Shucks" underdog who overcomes impossible odds and walks away a champion, and Manning fits that bill in the twilight of his career.  And even if you're just not into this guy or the Broncos this weekend, at least take solace in the possibility that he could replace the godawful Phil Simms in future CBS broadcasts.

A+ Adaptation - With Denver's rise as a defensive powerhouse and Peyton Manning's decline over the past year, it's worth noting how remarkable and swift this team's transformation has been in a change-averse league.  By now, you probably know the key plot points of this one.  After the Broncos were objectively embarrassed by the Seahawks two Super Bowls ago, GM/Resident Horse Face John Elway immediately set out to overhaul his roster in service of the ground-and-pound philosophy we know today.  First, Denver nabbed marquee playmakers DeMarcus Ware, Aqib Talib and T.J. Ward to shore up their biggest holes on defense.  Today, only three defensive starters from SB XLVIII will suit up on Sunday, underscoring the drastic improvements in talent this team has made since then - of course, health is a factor too since Von Miller was sidelined with an ACL tear last time around. Then, Elway made the bold decision to move on from coach John Fox in 2015, despite Fox's winning four straight division titles and a conference championship. He replaced Fox with coaching castaways Gary Kubiak and Wade Phillips (I will admit I thought this was nuts) who molded this team through a more consistent zone blocking run game and an aggressive defensive front.  And the rest is history - here now is a team making its second Super Bowl appearance in three years despite a dramatic transformation that seemed so counterintuitive when the Broncos had a historically great, Manning-centric approach.  Good on Elway for seeing the road ahead when a lot of us didn't.

Reasons to Hate the Broncos

HGH, You Taste So Good - So Peyton Manning’s allegedly/probably juicing. And if we were going to create eight months of controversy over Tom Brady’s squishy footballs only for him to keep playing the same as he always has, it seems only fair to poke a stick at this guy for cheating Father Time… allegedly.  I'll go ahead and say I'm stunned that this hasn't become a controversy with anywhere close to the amount of hand-wringing afforded to Ballghazi. On the one hand, who could blame a guy for wanting to improve his quality of life after enduring multiple neck surgeries and then returning to the ultimate contact sport?  On the other hand, this looks pretty shady, and it could ultimately call into question the legitimacy of some of Manning's best seasons as a pro including his record-breaking 55 touchdown, 5,477 yard MVP campaign in 2013.  The NFL has said it will investigate the matter thoroughly, but even if they find him culpable, Manning will likely have retired and avoided any serious consequences.  There's no way the league would keep this golden boy out of the Hall of Fame, and it benefits all parties to sweep it under the rug regardless of what the investigation proves or disproves.

Worse Bandwagon Fans - Hey look - a Lady Blitz retread from the last time the Broncos were in the Super Bowl!  Since the Panthers have the blessing of Steph Curry and an embarrassment of young talent and good coaching that could keep them in the conversation for years to come, I don't think they're too far off from becoming worse bandwagon fans than the Broncos.  BUT until the day Peyton is officially done, there will be a legion of part-time fans who probably still think he's the only reason Denver made it here in the first place.  They come out of the cracks in the sidewalk in their Tennessee/Broncos orange once every ten Nationwide commercials or so.  And then there's another much more insufferable segment of the population who will be cheering for the Broncos solely because they have an unhealthy hatred of Cam Newton.  There's this Titans fan whose level of moral outrage over Newton's dancing would suggest he was snorting cocaine off of a Bible on the sidelines.  And this Seahawks fan who was so scandalized by Newton taking down a 12th Man flag on the Panthers' home field that you'd think he would burn every children's hospital to the ground and detonate a cancer bomb if he could.  She got some grade-A co-babying from her fellow "12s" who started a freaking White House petition to ban Newton from CenturyLink Field because of that dang flag.  We'll get to the good and bad of Cam in a little while, but this unbridled soccer mom disgust over a guy enjoying the best year of his career is in its own stratosphere of ridiculousness.  If they were my mom, I'd make them drop me off two blocks away from the mall, just sayin'.  Anyway, I'm going to guess they're cheering for Denver this Sunday.

They’ve Been Here a Lot... It Usually Doesn't Work Out - And finally, for those who believe we should learn from history, you should know that the Broncos are usually pretty bad at Super Bowling. Although Denver's improbable win over the Packers in 1998 should serve as valuable inspiration for this team, they should mostly look away from the rest of this franchise's trips to the big dance.  The Broncos have lost five of their seven Super Bowls by the following point margins: 17, 19, 32, 45, 35.  That's really bad.  You know it's bad - we all watched SB XLVIII get decided by the Seahawks in less than a quarter just two years ago. You would have to go back to the 2002 Raiders to find another team that has lost the big one by at least 17 points.  If there's reason to hope this Broncos team can keep this one entertaining, it'll be because that defense comes through big time the way it did in John Elway's late career for Denver's only two Super Bowl wins.  But they're already six-point underdogs and helmed by a quarterback who cannot feel his fingers anymore or put much velocity on the ball - not a recipe for success against the ball-hawking Panthers.  This could get real ugly real fast if history repeats itself.

Reasons to Love the Panthers

Cam Newton Is Doing a Whole Lot More with Less - Carolina came into 2015 off of an embarrassing but somehow successful 7-8-1 playoff campaign and without any apparent upgrades to the roster in free agency. Dummies like me thought they’d be 6 - 10 at best. Six months later, I can’t think of another team that has defied expectations as much as this one in recent memory, and much is owed to soon-to-be-MVP Cam Newton. From his BCS-winning Heisman days, Newton has always had the chops to win big, but his pro career before this year was an up-and-down mix of electrifying plays and ugly back-footed throws to the other team when he wasn't getting knocked around in the open field. Newton started this season without long-time franchise stars Steve Smith and DeAngelo Williams and lost his top wideout from a year ago, Kelvin Benjamin, in training camp. Moreover, the Panthers picked up left tackle Michael Oher after he was bad enough to be released by the 2 - 14 Titans. All of these moves suggested the mercurial quarterback was going to be more on his own than ever, but instead, he transformed a team of backups and aging has-beens into the top-scoring offense in the league. Newton has become just as well-rounded in the pocket as he's always been on the move, and between his speed on the ground and his big arm, he's put many a good defense to shame by making every part of the field his playground. It's been just as fun to watch as it's been remarkable. An MVP well-deserved.

The Unbreakable Thomas Davis - If Cam Newton is the brightest star in the Panthers' future (and present), OLB Thomas Davis is the old guard veteran you'll be rooting for to win it all after a long and often difficult career.  I can testify that his speed off the line of scrimmage and ability to pick off passes in the middle of the field has made him a Saints killer for years.  After 11 years in the pros, Davis is the longest tenured player left on Carolina's roster, and while he's been one of the best in the game when healthy, he's suffered through an ungodly number of injuries to get to this point.  That includes three ACL tears in three consecutive years, and now a broken forearm that took him out of the NFC Championship against the Cardinals two weeks ago.  Unbelievably, Davis is planning to play, cast and all, in the Super Bowl this weekend, and I can't really blame him despite how much I'm wincing right now.  This has been the best year of his career with his first Pro Bowl and All Pro selections and his first and maybe only trip to the big dance.  If he puts a big arm tackle on Owen Daniels Sunday, there'll be a few extra people cheering in the stands and a few others wondering where they can get those kind of meds.

They're Having More Fun Than Anyone Else - Every now and then, a team comes along that just seems to get more mojo going as the season goes on, and their confidence is just as important to their performance as the skills and playbook they started with. The 1985 Bears and 2013 Seahawks come to mind, and now, so do these Panthers. They've been steadily snowballing into a juggernaut as the season has worn on with big plays on this Cam Newton-led offense, game-changing takeaways on defense, and no less than eight budding stars selected as All Pros including Newton as the obvious choice for league MVP. If my fellow Saints fans can put a little divisional vitriol aside for a minute, Carolina is a genuinely fun team to watch and they're bringing the crowd along to relish the moment. They've scored enough touchdowns to give nearly every child in Mecklenberg County his or her own game ball. They've taken the Dab to the point where people in nursing homes and convents now know what it is - it even allowed the Memphis Grizzlies to get some vicarious love in the Washington Post. I for one enjoyed their in-game group picture on the sidelines while they were trouncing the Falcons 38 - 0 even if it gave Atlanta enough motivation to hand the Panthers their only loss this season. On Sunday, Denver might represent the slow-and-steady old guard trying to "win the right way" in some people's minds, but Carolina will be the swaggering upstart guaranteed to deliver some jaw-dropping plays and look great doing it.

Reasons to Hate the Panthers

Cam Is a Brand - In the "totally consistent and reasonable" court of public opinion, Cam Newton has always been a controversial figure. With his team more in the spotlight than ever, he's certainly attracted a new gaggle of haters (like the ones I mentioned in Denver's section above) who have devolved into uncontrollable rage over his dabbing Broadway routines in the end zone.  Newton certainly isn't the first and won't be the last player to celebrate an MVP season in style, but he's also kind of a brand.  You may recall these leaked documents from when Carolina hired brand consultant Frank Luntz to PR the bejesus out of Cam and other young stars on the roster.  As a rookie, Newton said himself he wants to be "an entertainer and an icon" as much as he is an athlete.  Heck, he named his own child "Chosen" if that gives you a sense of how this guy feels about himself.  It's not that unusual when you consider others who came before him in fur coats on the sideline or wearing dog collars in their fashion spreads or throwing chalk around like a cheap magician.  ... But there's still a veneer of gimmick here at times that makes you feel like Cam's style is perhaps a little too well planned.  Can't wait til those post-Super Bowl endorsements roll in!

Jerry Richardson Is a Miserable Toad - In truth, you could probably reserve a spot in every team's negative points about their owner.  These aren't normal, down-to-earth people or bastions of charity and reasonable financial arrangements like you and me.  Panthers owner Jerry Richardson is pretty extra though.  In moves truly befitting of Bank of America stadium, Richardson has found ways to squeeze fans and taxpayers out of lots of goodies for this franchise.  This includes demanding and receiving the third-highest public funding gift in the history of the NFL (which is a LOT!) to renovate a stadium that is less than 20 years old by making the indefensible case that his team was not profitable enough... while also managing to pay himself and his executive staff $12 million a year.  Droopy Incarnate also reinvented another powerful tool of pro sports distortion, the Personal Seat License, which is now commonly used in NFL stadiums across the country to convince people to pay for the right to pay for season tickets.  You read that right - Richardson pioneered this glorified fee not so Panthers fans could get direct access to season tickets in Charlotte but so they could lock down specific seats to have the right to get tickets for them in a separate transaction.  So the next time you're sitting in a $200 nosebleed seat to watch a game that looks way better at home in high definition, you can thank this jerk and his market distortions:

They'll Probably Be an Insufferable Bandwagon Soon - Like every team in the NFC South, the Panthers have been too up and down for most of their history to attract and retain a legion of bandwagon fans.  But now they've notched their third consecutive division title, a 17 - 1 season and their second Super Bowl appearance with a cast of very talented young players just hitting the prime of their careers. You better believe the bandwagon is a-comin', and it's probably here to stay.  Even those who live in the Carolinas have been so trained on ACC basketball and NASCAR for so long, they're too new at this Panthers rooting interest to be considered real fans, but I can bet you there are thousands of newly adorned car flags riding around Charlotte this week with drivers who probably didn't watch a single game a year ago.  And let's be real, all of those SEC-worshiping weirdos are probably ready to jump ship from Peyton Manning to Cam Newton once the hobbling 39-year-old finally makes his exit.  So we're almost certainly in for years of "die-hard Panthers fans," established in 2015, who will be totally awful to be around for the next 7 - 10 years as soon as they trade in their Richard Sherman jerseys.  Don't be like them.


I'll have my game pick for you Thursday, but come back tomorrow too for a little lagniappe entitled Friends Don't Let Friends Listen to Coldplay.  Yay!