It has been 10 years since the last Super Bowl was played at Levi Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Super Bowl 50, a lot has changed since the meeting between denver broncos And carolina panthers Which served as the site of legendary quarterback Peyton Manning’s victorious swan song and the Broncos’ third Super Bowl title.
Nearly 10 years later, Super Bowl LX is back in the Bay Seattle Seahawks compete against new England Patriots. It’s a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX, an instant classic in which New England survived a goal-line interception that dashed Seattle’s hopes of a second Lombardi Trophy.
Seattle and New England arrive as the No. 1 and 2 seeds in their respective conferences, going 33–6 in the regular season and playoffs.
Here’s a look back at the last time the big game came to Northern California.
manning’s last ride
At age 39 and dealing with a left foot injury that limited him to nine starts during the regular season, Manning was not playing anywhere near his previous Hall of Fame level when the Broncos made it to the Super Bowl.
But Manning did enough in the postseason to have a shot at a second Super Bowl title and potentially ride off into the sunset with a championship, just like another famous Broncos quarterback: John Elway.
That’s exactly how it happened, as Manning threw for 141 yards and an interception with the Broncos’ defense doing most of the heavy lifting. manning became The oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl – before Tom Brady surpassed him – the first quarterback to win a Super Bowl as a starter for multiple teams, and the first signal-caller to win 200 games as a starter (regular and postseason).
Manning claimed a second Lombardi Trophy and retired a month later as the league’s (then) all-time leader in passing yards and touchdowns.
superman’s kryptonite
For most of the 2015 season, all signs pointed to a Super Bowl crown for quarterback Cam Newton and the 15-1 Panthers. Newton took the league by storm with his on-field performance – he had 4,473 total yards and 45 total touchdowns en route to earning MVP honors – and his memorable “Superman” and “Dab” celebrations.
As it turned out, Denver’s defense, which allowed the fewest yards and posted the most sacks in the league during the regular season, had the answers needed to slow Newton and the Panthers.
Denver’s seven sacks tied for the most in Super Bowl history and forced three Newton turnovers – one interception and two fumbles. Newton drew criticism for not diving after one of those fumbles in the shadow of his end zone, as the Broncos recovered at Carolina’s 4-yard line.
After the game, a frustrated Newton became agitated with the arrangement of the news conference, in which he had to answer questions about the Broncos’ victorious media availability. His answers were kept brief before Newton got up and left after about two and a half minutes.
Vaughn stole the show
While Manning and Newton received the most attention in the game, it was the leaders of Denver’s dominant defense who had the biggest impact.
torrent runner von miller Dominating Carolina’s offensive line, Newton had 2.5 sacks, including half of Denver’s takeaways, six tackles, two quarterback hits and a pair of game-changing strip sacks.
For his efforts, Miller became the 10th defensive player and fourth linebacker in NFL history to win Super Bowl MVP.
this is for pat
When Elway’s long journey to the Lombardi Trophy finally ended with a victory in Super Bowl XXXII, longtime Broncos owner Pat Bowlen stood on the stage and proudly announced into the microphone: “This one’s for John!”
Elway and the Broncos went on to win another Lombardi the following year, but did not return to the big game until Super Bowl 50. By then, Elway had long retired and taken over as general manager of the Broncos.
Bowlen remained as owner until 2014, when he stepped away from day-to-day operations to fight Alzheimer’s disease, but he was never far from Elway’s mind as Denver claimed its third championship.
As Elway stepped to the microphone in Santa Clara, he loudly obliged he said: “This is for Pat!” Bowlen would die in June 2019 and would be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame later that year.
No ‘L’ in 50
The Broncos-Panthers matchup represented an important milestone – the 50th Super Bowl, the league’s golden anniversary. This meant taking out an extra stop to celebrate, but it also meant a small but notable change to the game’s traditional logo.
The NFL has used Roman numerals for Super Bowls since Super Bowl V in 1971. But the league opted to take a one-year break from it, moved to Arabic numerals and called it simply “Super Bowl 50”.
According to the NFL at the time, the Roman numeral for 50 – “L” – did not serve as a standalone letter for the logo. This was a one-year hiatus, the Roman numerals returned for Super Bowl LI the following year.
Star-studded halftime show
After shortlisting options for the halftime show, the NFL landed on Coldplay as the primary artist. But as the show took shape, it became much bigger.
Coldplay opened halftime by singing some of their hits, including “Yellow”, before the guest performances began. Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson led a troupe of backup dancers in a performance of “Uptown Funk”, which later transitioned into Beyoncé, who joined her own dance troupe, performing her then-new single “Formation”.
Beyoncé, Mars and Coldplay ended the performance with a video montage of past performances, followed by the song “Up and Up” before the second half began.
