Is Broncos defense NFL’s new gold standard?

After what the Broncos did to Cam Newton and the top-ranked Carolina Panthers offense Sunday night in Super Bowl 50, throwing Newton around like a rag doll rather than a 250-pound defense-killing, new-age quarterback, it’s hard not to consider them among the all-time great units.

Carolina came into the game as the top-ranked scoring offense in the league, a unit that most expected to roll over the Broncos defense.

It is a unit led by outside linebacker Von Miller who was named the game’s MVP after getting 2.5 sacks, forcing a fumble that was recovered in the end zone for a touchdown, another that set up a score and essentially turning right tackle Mike Remmers into a subway turnstile.

The seven sacks tied the Super Bowl record, set by the 1985 Chicago Bears, a team that still had what I think is the most-fearsome defense this league has seen.

What might tip the scales to this Denver defense are the teams it beat in the postseason to win it all.

That’s Ben Roethlisberger, Tom Brady and Newton, this year’s MVP, in successive games.

Of the four defenses in the debate for best in the last 30 years, this Denver team was second to the Bears in sacks with 52.

That’s probably why I would give this defense the edge over the 2013 Seahawks, which beat Denver in the Super Bowl that year.

So dominant was the Denver defense that it turned Peyton Manning winning his second Super Bowl into a sidebar.

Were it not for a late touchdown, which was set up by a second Miller strip sack, Denver could have become the first team to win a Super Bowl without scoring an offensive touchdown.