Ka-lil, Ker-plunk: Friendly fire torpedoes Panthers, as their own Offensive Line — anchored by ex-trojan Center Ryan Kalil — is like a screen door on a submarine, allowing Denver’s Defense to get 7 Sacks, cause 4 Turnovers, and score a Touchdown in the Broncos’ 24-10 Super Bowl 50 Victory
Peyton Manning, despite an entirely lackluster performance, is a World Champion once again, hopefully in his last game ever. His two Turnovers and historically bad streak of 3rd Down failures allowed Carolina to hang around, but in the end, it was the incompetence of the Panther Offense to get anything going that allowed Manning to go out on top with a 24-10 triumph.
Carolina — a 6-point favorite to win the game — underperformed on the Offensive side of the ball all game long. Cam Newton was simply horrible in his first Super Bowl, making decisions worse than the one his Dad allegedly made asking colleges to pay $300,000 for his son to attend. But the reason Newton was so ineffective was that his swiss cheese O-Line was so useless. They committed a half-dozen pre-snap penalties, and allowed the Denver defenders free reign to harass Newton into repeated mistakes. One Interception stopped a drive in the red zone, and two of the seven Sacks led to lost fumbles, including one recovered in the end zone for a TD.
The Panther Offensive Tackles were big culprits, allowing the Defensive Ends to LIVE in the Offensive Backfield, but it all starts with Center Ryan Kalil. The Panthers need to RUN the ball to be balanced and effective, but Kalil & Co. couldn’t open any holes, and got pushed back and steamrolled throughout the game. So I won’t call Kalil the “GOAT,” but I would place the blame squarely on this trojan’s UNIT. And I haven’t said that since the last time I heard about a series of sexual misconduct allegations against some other trojan.
So that’s two Super Bowls in a row where an ex-trojan is at least partially to blame for a pathetic loss. Now everyone can go watch American Crime Story, about another trojan. But that one is definitely to blame.