So looking at the numbers from FO
Peyton had the 3rd worst performance of any QB in Superbowls from 1989 and on. Only Collins and Elway in 89 were worse. Both of them famously lost big. Only Peyton and Roethlisberger finished in the bottom 10 and won.
Overall Carolina's offense was much better than Denver's. Cam was better than Peyton, Whittaker and Stewart were better than Anderson and Hillman. Only blip for Carolina was Tolbert who had one good run, and he fumbled it.
Carolina should have won the game, they lost the game because of 3 plays. Sack/fumble/TD, if that doesn't happen I think Carolina plays a bit more conservative and just pounds Denver down. 2. Punt Return. I still am baffled as to how that happened. I mean it's the job of the gunners to watch for that. He didn't call for a fair catch, he should have been knocked out of the game. They failed on 2 fronts, both got too close to the receiver and didn't time their entry right and most importantly didn't watch for the call. He didn't even kind of look like he was calling a fair catch .He should have had his clock cleaned and likely would have resulted in a fumble and maybe Carolina recovers it in great field position. Instead it's 3 points for Denver. Those 10 points were the difference makers. You remove those 10 points it's probably a 13 or 16-6 final score. 3. Missing the fieldgoal stung. It can't be good on psyche to almost be back in the game and smack the upright. I think that was a deflating blow to Carolina