John Fox must have been sick to his stomach Sunday night while watching Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, California.

The current Chicago Bears head coach had to watch his two former teams that he led to a Super Bowl appearance battle it out for glory. Both teams fired Fox. The coach took the Carolina Panthers to Super Bowl XXXVIII to ultimately lose to the New England Patriots, and then the Denver Broncos to Super Bowl XLVIII just two years ago, getting bushwhacked by the “Legion of Boom” and the Seattle Seahawks.

So the question is, how did Gary Kubiak, take basically the same team John Fox had and lead them to become “World Champions?” It’s for a couple of different reasons.

First, remember who the defensive coordinator was last year when Andrew Luck and Co. came in to the Mile High City to knock off the Broncos. It was Jack del Rio. He left prior to the 2015-16 NFL season to switch his orange crush colors for black and silver, joining the Oakland Raiders as head coach.

So with del Rio gone, this is where Kubiak earned his Lombardi trophy: Getting Wade Phillips to come as defensive coordinator. Kubiak, who knew Phillips from his time down in Houston together, brought him out of retirement to coach his defense.

And from there, the Super Bowl Champions were born.

Phillips’ defense were the best of the best this year. They learned from teams like the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the 2014 Seattle Seahawks, and the 2008 New York Giants and others, that defense wins championships. The Broncos defense ranked No. 1 in total yards, passing yards and sacks. And regardless of the early struggles of Peyton Manning and his play during the season, Denver still dominated opponents when they were on defense, and it paid dividends.

Even though statistically, Peyton Manning had one god awful year as QB, and will go down as one of the worst seasons in his career, he still relied on his defense to get him over the hump. A defense that wasn’t there two years ago in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

We’ve learned that cruddy quarterbacks can still win it all. QB’s like Brad Johnson, Trent Dilfer, Joe Flacco, Jeff Hostetler, and Mark Rypien won it all, and big thanks go to their defenses. Honestly, Brad Johnson handed the ball off to Michael Pittman. And I’m the only person in Plant High School who knows who Michael Pittman is. Guarantee it.

So it came to no surprise Sunday Night that the reason this Denver team hoisted the Lombardi Trophy was not due to Peyton Manning waking up from his slump to throw 300 yards and 5 TDs. It was by the Wade Phillips-led defense forcing four turnovers, and recovering three of them. They turned the magical MVP Cam Newton into semi-decent Cam Newton.

There’s a reason that this team got over the hump that it couldn’t even see last year. The genius that is Wade Phillips turned this defense into something special, and players like Von Miller, Aquib Talib and DeMarcus Ware stepped up in the face of adversity when people questioned if the Broncos should even be in this game to begin with, or if their franchise quarterback, who may have played his last game, got a little help from human growth hormone, deserved to be in this game as well.

Give credit where credit is due. Although they may not have looked like Super Bowl Champions from the start of the season, they capitalized on the opportunities throughout the playoffs, and are now your Super Bowl 50 champions.

Congratulations, Denver. It was much deserved.