A lot happened in two games this weekend, and a lot of crazy stats and notes will come out between now and the kickoff of the Super Bowl. Here are a few of them, and they are actually pretty crazy.
Manning v Brady
Did you know Peyton Manning and Tom Brady played each other this weekend. Manning won.
Manning is now 3-2 when his team faces Tom Brady’s team in the playoffs, though Brady’s Patriots teams hold the overall record over Manning’s Colts and Broncos teams 11-6. Also, always remember that quarterback wins are a ridiculous statistic and comparing quarterbacks head to head in wins is even more ridiculous.
Cam Newton – A QB Among Legends
Joe Buck mentioned this on the telecast on Fox, but Cam Newton is looking to join only Joe Namath and Joe Montana as quarterbacks who have led teams to both the college national championship and Super Bowl.
Namath was at the helm of the 1964 Alabama team, then famously winning Super Bowl III. Montana won a title with Notre Dame in 1977, then won four titles with the San Francisco 49ers.
Ken Stabler played for the 1965 Alabama Crimson Tide, but did not play in the 1966 Orange Bowl and led the Oakland Raiders to the Super Bowl XI title and Troy Aikman actually was on the 1985 Oklahoma team but got hurt early in the year, so technically just Namath and Montana led their teams to both titles.
There’s a little more to just how elite Newton can become with a Super Bowl win.
There are just four players in history to win a Heisman Trophy and an NFL MVP: Paul Hornung, O.J. Simpson, Marcus Allen and Barry Sanders. Only Hornung and Allen also won a Super Bowl, and only Allen also won a Super Bowl MVP. But that’s getting a little ahead of ourselves on Newton. He has to win the game first.
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NFL MVP in the Super Bowl
The NFL MVP, as voted by the Associated Press, has made it to the Super Bowl 25 times in the previous 49 games, with Cam Newton expected to be the 26th MVP to play in that season’s Super Bowl.
That’s actually really impressive, considering the NFL MVP has only made it to the Super Bowl six times since 2000.
It will be more impressive if Newton wins the MVP and wins the Super Bowl. The last player to win both in the same season was Kurt Warner, when he won his first MVP—he made the Super Bowl both years he won—back in 1999.
Since that season, the six MVP losers are Peyton Manning, twice (2013 and 2009 seasons), Tom Brady (2007 season), Shaun Alexander (2005 season), Rich Gannon (2002 season) and Warner (2001 season).
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Top Seeds Success
This season marks the third-straight year that both top seeds made the Super Bowl, which is remarkable, given it only happened one other time—in 2009—since the NFL went to eight divisions in 2002.
The top seeds in the playoffs have met in the Super Bowl just 12 times, including this year, since seeding was introduced in 1975. Denver has been the AFC representative now in four of those 12 games.
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Combined Records in the Super Bowl: The Best Since…
Carolina and Denver combined for a 27-5 regular season record, and head to the Super Bowl at 31-5 including the playoffs.
Super Bowl opponents have combined for 30 or more wins six times before this season since 2002 when the league expanded to four divisions in each conference. This year marks the fifth time since 1999 that two teams combined for 31 wins, though just the third with only 5 combined losses (some seasons a Super Bowl team played in the Wild Card round, accounting for the extra win.)
The last time the two Super Bowl teams combined for 31 wins was the 2009 season, when the 13-3 New Orleans Saints beat the 14-2 Indianapolis Colts and…Peyton Manning.
This pairing ties the most wins leading in to a Super Bowl since the 1998 season, when the two Super Bowl teams combined for a record of 32-4 heading into the Big Game…the last time Denver won the Super Bowl.
Carolina’s offense
The Carolina Panthers were the NFL’s highest-scoring team in the regular season, tallying 500 points, good for 31.2 points per game. Carolina is averaging 40 points per game this playoff season, against two top-seven scoring defenses in Seattle and Arizona. Now, granted, some of those points were scored against units other than the defense, but Carolina’s scoring prowess this playoff season is flat nuts.
It doesn’t guarantee much in the Super Bowl, however. Just once since 2002 when the league re-defined divisions has the top scoring offense in the NFL won the Super Bowl. This is the fourth time since 2002 the top-scoring team made it to the game, but only the 2009 New Orleans Saints came home with a victory.
Denver’s defense
Denver finished the season with the NFL’s top-rated defense, though that rating is based on total yards per game, where the Broncos gave up just 283.1 ypg, nearly nine fewer than Seattle.
The Seahawks had the league’s best scoring defense, however, at 17.3 points per game surrendered, while Denver finished fourth at 18.5, behind Cincinnati and Kansas City as well.
That said, Denver has given up just 17 points per game in the postseason, despite playing the league’s third and fourth-rated offenses in New England (29.1 ppg) and Pittsburgh (26.4 ppg).
We all know the saying ‘defense wins championships’ but in the last 13 years, since the league went to eight divisions, the NFL’s top defense made the Super Bowl just four times. Well, now five times in 14 years. That said, three of those previous four times, the team with the league’s top-rated defense won the Super Bowl as well.
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Denver in the Super Bowl
Denver has been to the Super Bowl seven times before this season, winning two behind the power running game of Terrell Davis and some guy named John Elway at quarterback. Denver’s most recent trip to the Super Bowl came two seasons ago, when Denver lost to Seattle 43-8.
Gary Kubiak is the fifth head coach in Broncos history to take a team to the Super Bowl. Red Miller led the 1977 Broncos and Randy Gradishar to the Super Bowl. Dan Reeves and John Elway lost three Super Bowls in five years in the mid 1980s. Mike Shanahan and Elway won their only two trips to the Super Bowl. John Fox and Peyton Manning got Denver there in 2013 with now Kubiak and Manning leading the way after the 2015 season.
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Carolina in the Super Bowl
Carolina has been to the Super Bowl once in franchise history, losing the game following the 2003 season 32-29 to New England.
Before this season, Carolina had only been to the playoffs six times in franchise history, including the two previous years under head coach Ron Rivera.
Though it took Rivera five seasons, he and Kubiak have something in common: they both replaced John Fox as head coaches and took their teams to the Super Bowl. For what it’s worth, Fox took both these teams to the Super Bowl too, so Chicago Bears fans should look forward to one losing trip to the Super Bowl with Fox sometime soon, followed by another trip with the coach that replaces him.
