Panthers, Broncos make wrong kind of history

Super Bowl teams fail to make playoffs

CComment arolina and Denver made history again. For only the third time, both participating Super Bowl teams have failed to make the following season’s playoffs.

Entering Week 16, we already knew the defending NFC champion Carolina Panthers wouldn’t be playing past New Year’s Day, when the NFL’s regular season ends for all 32 teams.

Same now goes for the defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos, after their 33-10 loss on Christmas night at Kansas City.

The only other years in which both Super Bowl combatants watched the following season’s playoffs entirely on TV were 1999 (Denver and Atlanta) and 2003 (Tampa Bay and Oakland).

Carolina, at 6-9, sits in last place in the NFC South. It hadn’t missed the playoffs since 2012.

Denver, at 8-7, will finish third in the AFC West. It hadn’t missed the playoffs since 2010.

The Panthers have struggled in 2016 from the get-go. The Broncos, only recently.

It’s clear now where Denver’s fortunes changed: in that Nov. 27 home-field loss to the Chiefs. The Broncos had a 7-3 record and led K.C. in that Sunday night game by eight points with three minutes left, only to lose that lead on flukes at the end of regulation, and fall in overtime on a K.C. field goal that ricocheted in off the left upright.

“We could have come out of that game with a lot of confidence offensively, with a young quarterback, a young running back. A lot of confidence,” Broncos coach Gary Kubiak said. “(But) we didn’t get it done. It’s just been a struggle since then, especially offensively.

“Bottom line … we haven’t played well in the last four or five weeks.”

Right. A December not to remember. Only one Denver win.

Speculation already has begun that Broncos GM John Elway will make a determined off-season pitch to wrestle Tony Romo from the Dallas Cowboys — considering second-year Denver passer Trevor Siemian’s late-season struggles, considering Siemian’s backup (raw rookie Paxton Lynch) needs at least a year of starting before he can grow into reliable effectiveness, and considering the Broncos return a talented defence that’s but a couple of better frontseven players from returning to dominance.

More on all that in early 2017.

As for Sunday’s season finale against visiting Oakland, Kubiak would not say on Monday whether Siemian or Lynch would start at QB. “We’ll see,” he told reporters.

Antonio Brown, WR, Steelers. Sunday’s Christmas classic between Baltimore and Pittsburgh came down to the final seconds. Brown caught a quick pass fired by Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger, and got stood up inches short of the goal-line by a pair of Ravens tacklers. It appeared they were about to push Brown farther back, but the all-pro receiver tenaciously and heroically somehow twisted free enough to lunge his body toward the goal-line and, before another two tacklers could arrive on the scene, free the ball from his torso and reach it over and across the goal-line — touchdown, with nine seconds left. Time might have run out on the Steelers before Roethlisberger could have spiked the ball to stop the clock if Brown hadn’t scored, so victory as well as a playoff berth might have rested on the outcome of that one play. Brown tweeted afterward: “Every extra set! Every extra rep! It’s for the extra inch! AFC North CHAMPS baby ! #boomin.”

The Football Fates. On the night before Christmas Eve, the Football fates of 2016 stranded the Minnesota Vikings in their airplane for four hours after it slid off the runway in Appleton, Wisc. — hours before they kicked off against the Packers. On Christmas Eve, the fates broke the legs of two of the hottest young QBs in the league — Tennessee’s Marcus Mariota and Oakland’s Derek Carr — and hurt the left shoulder of New York Jets’ Bryce Petty. And they gutted playoff-parched Buffalo Bills fans for the 17th straight December. If all that redistributed misfortune is what it took to muster all the good breaks the Cleveland Browns required to finally win Game No. 1, well, no one outside Northeast Ohio is cheering.

Adam Gase. Despite Miami’s bad run defence — and don’t think Pats coach Bill Belichick hasn’t noticed — Gase’s Dolphins have won 10 games and secured a playoff berth, two things the franchise hadn’t done since winning the AFC East in 2008. After his Dolphins started 1-4, Gase with each week has been making an increasingly compelling case that he’s as worthy a candidate for NFL’s coach of the year as anybody. And in his rookie season. Impressive.

Seattle Seahawks. Perhaps no team this season has been as mysterious as Pete Carroll’s Seahawks. Maybe it’s all the key injuries on both sides of the ball. Only the New Orleans Saints and Arizona Cardinals have been as hard to figure from week to week. Seattle’s home-field loss Saturday to dispirited, out-of-it Arizona was another stomach-punch to a team that relies more than any other on overflowing confidence. That confidence is draining, not overflowing. Time to really worry, Seahawks fans.