If the Carolina Panthers are half the team I think they are, next weekend’s Super Bowl may not be a particularly close. Cam’s Panthers are too everything: too young, too fast, too balanced and, despite a fluke loss to the Atlanta Falcons, too difficult to solve.
The team on the other sideline next Sunday will be a very different group. A team that has been buoyed by an elite defense, that hasn’t found success moving the ball and that has won despite, rather than because of, its Hall of Fame quarterback. That quarterback’s name is Peyton Manning, and if common wisdom holds true, chances are significant that he will take the football field for the last time in his career at Levi’s Stadium.