Superbowl 50

Carolina Panthers V Denver Broncos

My Prices – Panthers 1.70 Broncos 2.44

Vegas Line – Panthers -5.5

Superbowl 50 is here and first of all we have to talk about the pitch, these are the total points of the two teams combined in all San Francisco’s home games this season 20-23-23-32-32-33-38-45 as you can see the over’s only cashed in once and it seems there are a lot of low scoring games so it must be something to do with conditions in the 49ers stadium so this is something we need to keep in mind when handicapping this contest.

As we look at the teams we see they both have excellent defences with Denver’s ranked 1^st being a class apart from even its closest rival in Carolina ranked 2^nd, on offence Carolina win hands down ranking 8^th on my numbers with Denver weighing in at 25^th partly due to veteran QB Manning being totally inept physically with his throwing arm totally gone. The other problem for Manning is pass protection – it’s not the worse by any means but it’s not very good either, the Panthers have the fifth-most sacks in the NFL (44) this season so they’ll be getting to the QB at some stage for sure, what Denver have to do in this scenario if they want to win the game is limit turnovers because if you give the ball to Cam Newton in your half of the field he will produce a scoring drive.

The only place the Panthers seem to be vulnerable defensively is their secondary due to injuries to both starting cornerbacks, Manning has weapons to throw to but he no longer has the arm strength to pull this off so the signs are not good for the Broncos passing game if the QB can only target his tight end and running back with short throws as the Panthers Kuechly and company will soon be in their faces. So the question is can they get anything going on the ground and establish the run with Anderson and Hillman, now there not the best runners in the league but they’re good enough to open up some holes and keep the ball moving in short yardage gains, if they can do this consistently it will protect Manning from the pass rush by making sack machines Addison and Short hesitate and look for runners, they have run the ball well between then so far in the play-offs so why can’t that continue here? FYI the Panthers finished with the league's sixth-best run defence so it’s not impregnable by any means. 

So how are the Panthers going to attack the best defence the league has seen since the Steelers legendary 2008 D, well QB Cam Newton has been a terror all season but he has never faced a defence of this quality in his career, the Denver pass rush is truly ferocious and will bring heavy heat to Newton, Carolina doesn’t have any receiving weapons of sufficient quality to trouble Denver’s elite secondary, Ginn and Funchess just won’t cut it in the backfield against Talib & Harris and the Broncos need to capitalise on this and try and force some turnovers through QB pressure and bad throws, also and this is very important as long as safeties Stewart and Ward are fit and healthy for Denver they will be able to shut down Carolina’s main weapon in tight end Olsen, who is improving rapidly and is almost Gronk-like in his production.

It seems the Panthers are going to have to run the ball then through Newton himself and Stewart which to be fair they have been doing very successfully all season long trouble is Denver lead the league in stuffing the run and opponents don’t get to far after contact so Newton needs to stay patient and not rush into bad throws when scrambling.

This is looking to me like it’s going to be a low scoring game on a bad pitch decided by whomever makes the least turnovers and with that in mind giving up 5.5 points to the best defence seen in years is way too much and I’m confidently backing Denver +5.5 at 1.95 with Ladbrokes, now I’m not saying Carolina won’t win because I think they have a very good chance of lifting the trophy but they won’t win by more than 5 points in what I think will be a close game.

 Enjoy the contest and I’ll see you next season.