Cam Newton and the thrilling Carolina Panthers are off to the Super Bowl, and it feels both inevitable and fun.  But yowza, look who’s also going: geezer Peyton Manning!  What a happy, heart-fluttering and somewhat improbable story that Manning—not long ago injured, benched and left for retirement roadkill—will get another crack at a ring after Denver’s impressive victory Sunday over New England. Over the next two weeks, there will be a sugar rush of sentimentality over how the 39-year-old quarterback extricated himself from the depths of his career to vanquish a young replacement, rebuke Father Time and again defeat his nemeses, Tom Brady and Grumbly Bill Belichick.  That’s right: Feb. 7 in Santa Clara, just a short driverless car ride (beep! vrrrooom!) from the Silicon Valley Googleplex, Old Man Peyton will line up against the Panthers and the 26-year-old Newton, the presumed 2015 NFL MVP who has built a case as the best quarterback in the league.  It’s an irresistible match-up, as Manning is a five-time MVP, a Super Bowl champ, and one of the most popular NFL players ever. But let’s not get carried away with the plot. The Broncos are going to the Super Bowl on Feb. 7 in Santa Clara, Calif. because of another asset: a ridiculous defense.  None of this is said to diminish Manning, who played admirably and beyond what was presumed he had left. It’s just that the Bronco D was clearly the story Sunday—aggressive, relentless, suffocating. Brady spent most of the afternoon on the run, never clicking with his receivers. The rest of the day he seemed to spend on his back.  New England would manage to take it down to the end—a Brady touchdown pass to Rob Gronkowski with 12 seconds left gave the Patriots a chance to try a 2-point conversion to tie the game. But once more a harried Brady threw a shade-too-difficult pass, and Denver intercepted. That was that. The Denver D had done it.  Carolina, meanwhile, won in a devastating laugher. It began its NFC championship versus Arizona the same way as its divisional playoff against Seattle: by blazing out of the garage at 85 MPH. At the end of the second quarter, the Panthers led 17-0. Arizona would not mount an anxious-making comeback as Seattle had done a week before, preferring to turn the ball over 85,000 times.  A diving flip touchdown run by Newton in the third quarter made it 34-7 and all but done. The final score was 49-15. Yikes.  (A quick ask: heading into the Super Bowl, can we please just stop those ridiculous debates over whether or not Cam Newton’s in-game and post-game celebrations are somehow detracting from the staid, serious-minded game of North American football? Newton (335 yards passing Sunday, with two passing and two rushing touchdowns) is nothing less than the most exciting-to-watch player in a sport with a lot of starting quarterbacks who are as exciting to watch as a bag of wet sand. If you could play like Cam Newton, you would never stop celebrating.)  On the unhappy side of the field, it will be a long wait until training camp for Arizona, which enjoyed a great season under head coach Bruce Arians until shrinking in Charlotte. It will be similarly long for New England, which played under a withering spotlight after last season’s Super Bowl victory and the continued “Deflategate” drama involving Brady. New England began the 2015 regular season as if in a revenge caper—they started 10-0 before a loss to Denver kicked off a 2-4 skid.  There will be no vengeance Super Bowl repeat for the Patriots. The two-week “Roger Goodell’s Nightmare” storyline is kaput. The Patriots will look with regret at missed opportunities versus Denver—Gronkowski appeared open in the end zone on the failed two-point conversion, and there was a shocking missed extra point in the first half by kicker Stephen Gostkowski, who had not missed one since 2006.  Instead there will be the unexpected return of Manning, who struggled badly against Seattle in a Super Bowl loss in 2014, lost his job this season to shiny backup Brock Osweiler after an injury, and endured loud whispers of his creaky demise, not to mention published allegations of an HGH shipment in 2011 to his home, which Manning strongly denied as untrue.  So here comes another Super Bowl, the 50th overall, and there will be so many shiny lists and histories you may need a nap. Here comes the usual hype and the absurdity, the goofball press conferences and breathless pregame conversations that start to run out of adverbs with about four days to go. (Here comes Coldplay—are you pumped for halftime Coldplay? Come on! Beyonce’s supposedly showing up, too!) Here comes a Carolina team that very much feels like the best team in football. Here comes Denver and that staggering defense. And look here comes your old pal, Peyton Manning—who would have believed that, just a month or so ago? Maybe not even him.  Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers in the Super Bowl seemed inevitable, writes Jason Gay, but who would have thought that Peyton Manning would be there too?