It’s been 10 years since the last Super Bowl at Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Much has changed since Super Bowl 50, the meeting between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers that served as legendary quarterback Peyton Manning’s victorious swan song and the site of the Broncos’ third Super Bowl title.
Nearly 10 years to the day later, Super Bowl LX is back in the Bay, with the Seattle Seahawks squaring off against the New England Patriots. It’s a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX, an instant classic that saw New England escape after a goal-line interception dashed Seattle’s hopes for a second Lombardi Trophy.
Seattle and New England arrive as the No. 1 and 2 seeds in their respective conferences, combining to go 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 39 years old and having dealt with a left foot injury that limited him to nine starts during the regular season, Manning wasn’t playing anywhere near his previous Hall of Fame level when the Broncos made it to the Super Bowl.
But Manning had done enough in the postseason to take a shot at a second Super Bowl title and potentially ride off into the sunset with a championship, just like another legendary Broncos quarterback: John Elway.
That’s exactly how it played out, 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 the 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 toward the Super Bowl as a coronation for quarterback Cam Newton and the 15-1 Panthers. Newton had taken the league by storm with his on-field performance — he had 4,473 total yards and 45 total touchdowns on his way to league 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 down.
Denver’s seven sacks tied for the most in Super Bowl history and forced three Newton turnovers — an 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 disappointed Newton grew agitated by the news conference setup, which had him answering questions within earshot of the Broncos’ victorious media availabilities. Newton’s answers were kept short before he got up and left roughly two and a half minutes later.
Von steals the show
While Manning and Newton garnered much of the attention going into the game, it was the leader of Denver’s dominant defense who had the biggest impact.
Edge rusher Von Miller dominated Carolina’s offensive line, sacking Newton 2.5 times, including a pair of game-changing strip sacks to account for half of Denver’s takeaways, six tackles, two quarterback hits and a pass defended.
For his efforts, Miller became the 10th defensive player and fourth linebacker in NFL history to win Super Bowl MVP.
This one’s for Pat
When Elway’s long journey to a Lombardi Trophy finally reached its end with a win in Super Bowl XXXII, longtime Broncos owner Pat Bowlen stood on the stage and proudly declared into a microphone: “This one’s for John!”
Elway and the Broncos would go 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 since retired and had taken over as the Broncos’ general manager.
Bowlen stayed on as owner until 2014, when he stepped away from day-to-day operations to battle Alzheimer’s disease, but he wasn’t far from Elway’s mind as Denver claimed its third championship.
As Elway stepped to the microphone in Santa Clara, he returned the favor, loudly stating: “This one’s for Pat!” Bowlen would pass away in June 2019 and be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame later that year.
No ‘L’ in 50
The Broncos-Panthers matchup represented a significant milestone — the 50th Super Bowl, the league’s golden anniversary. That meant pulling out extra stops to celebrate, but it also meant a small but notable shift in the traditional logo for the game.
The NFL had used Roman numerals for the Super Bowl since Super Bowl V in 1971. But the league opted for a one-year break from that, shifting to Arabic numerals and calling it simply “Super Bowl 50.”
According to the NFL at the time, the Roman numeral for 50 — “L” — didn’t work as a standalone letter for the logo. It was a one-year hiatus, with the roman numerals returning the following year for Super Bowl LI.
Star-studded halftime show
After sorting through options for the halftime show, the NFL landed on Coldplay as the primary performer. But as the show took shape, it became much bigger.
Coldplay opened halftime playing a few of its hits, including “Yellow,” before the guest performances began. Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson led a cast of backup dancers in performing “Uptown Funk,” which then transitioned into Beyonce, joined by her own dance troupe, performing her then-new single “Formation.”
Beyonce, Mars and Coldplay wrapped up the performance with a video montage of performances from the past, leading into the song “Up&Up” before the second half kicked off.
