My beloved Broncos are Super Bowl champs and what a hell of a day Sunday was (more on that next post). Most everyone I talked to prior to the SB said they were rooting for Peyton to go out on a high, but it wouldn't be awful if Carolina won because Cam Newton seemed like a good guy. And maybe he is, but he didn't show it last night. In case you missed it, the regular season NFL MVP got manhandled by Von Miller and company in an ass-whooping that included two QB fumbles leading to scores. The second of those fumbles ended up leading to the nail in the coffin for Carolina and the peculiar thing about it was that Newton made very little effort to recover the ball. He basically watched two Broncos pounce on it and refrained from even attempting to go to the ground. Maybe he didn't want to take anymore hits, but it's kinda, sorta in your job description to try and win the game. And he had to know that losing that fumble, deep in Carolina territory, would make it near impossible to make a comeback. That fumble was Cam Newton's season on the line and he watched it slip away. Also in an NFL QB's job description is meeting with the media post-game, and that ended up being the worst part of the night for Newton's image.
Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera gave a few (and probably more) post-game interviews and in the ones I saw, he said all the right things. He commended the Broncos defense on an unreal performance and he mentioned having told his team that just two years ago, Denver was on the losing end of a SB and now we're champs. It's little consolation to say, "There's always next year", but in this case it's true. Unfortunately, Carolina's quarterback didn't get the memo. He took questions for exactly three minutes and thirteen seconds, wrapped up tight in a hoodie and answering almost everything with, "I don't know what you want me to say" or short, one word answers. When asked a question about his teammates and how they've been so close all year, he simply got up and walked out of the presser and has made no further comment. Talk about a childish move. It takes years to build a reputation, but it takes very little to lose it. Newton went through the season on a high, playing with an excitement and passion for the game that gained him a lot of fans. I watched several of Carolina's games this season to see if they could pull off a perfect season and was impressed with his athleticism. Some people accused the Panthers of too much excessive celebration and of rubbing their opponents noses in their victories, but I saw nothing of the sort. It was obvious they were having fun as a team and the huge leads they built in the first half of games turned out to be much needed as they constantly flirted with giving every single point back in the second half. Newton loved the game and he was having a season for the ages, which he had every right to enjoy however he saw fit. Obviously he's still talented and presumably he still has that same passion, but last night he came off as a brat and a sore loser. He was all smiles as he danced and celebrated through 15 victories and steamrolled over two playoff teams, yet had absolutely nothing to say after he got steamrolled himself. I listened to an NFL Network analyst defend Newton's presser by saying he's young and he'll learn from it, and so on. It was his first trip to the big show, but he's old enough to know not to retreat like a spoiled child when he loses a game. If you're going to dance your way through the good times, you damn well better be prepared to take your lumps during the bad times. Did I expect him to get up there and say, "Yeah man, they kicked my ass"? Of course not. But consider this - two weeks ago, Tom Brady also got manhandled by the Denver defense and he walked up to the podium post-game and admitted they kept him off balance and outplayed New England. Brady is a cheater, liar and a dick, but he was able to get up there and do his job, even when the outcome of the game was not pleasant. You know you've handled shit poorly when you're making Tom Brady look decent.
Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera gave a few (and probably more) post-game interviews and in the ones I saw, he said all the right things. He commended the Broncos defense on an unreal performance and he mentioned having told his team that just two years ago, Denver was on the losing end of a SB and now we're champs. It's little consolation to say, "There's always next year", but in this case it's true. Unfortunately, Carolina's quarterback didn't get the memo. He took questions for exactly three minutes and thirteen seconds, wrapped up tight in a hoodie and answering almost everything with, "I don't know what you want me to say" or short, one word answers. When asked a question about his teammates and how they've been so close all year, he simply got up and walked out of the presser and has made no further comment. Talk about a childish move. It takes years to build a reputation, but it takes very little to lose it. Newton went through the season on a high, playing with an excitement and passion for the game that gained him a lot of fans. I watched several of Carolina's games this season to see if they could pull off a perfect season and was impressed with his athleticism. Some people accused the Panthers of too much excessive celebration and of rubbing their opponents noses in their victories, but I saw nothing of the sort. It was obvious they were having fun as a team and the huge leads they built in the first half of games turned out to be much needed as they constantly flirted with giving every single point back in the second half. Newton loved the game and he was having a season for the ages, which he had every right to enjoy however he saw fit. Obviously he's still talented and presumably he still has that same passion, but last night he came off as a brat and a sore loser. He was all smiles as he danced and celebrated through 15 victories and steamrolled over two playoff teams, yet had absolutely nothing to say after he got steamrolled himself. I listened to an NFL Network analyst defend Newton's presser by saying he's young and he'll learn from it, and so on. It was his first trip to the big show, but he's old enough to know not to retreat like a spoiled child when he loses a game. If you're going to dance your way through the good times, you damn well better be prepared to take your lumps during the bad times. Did I expect him to get up there and say, "Yeah man, they kicked my ass"? Of course not. But consider this - two weeks ago, Tom Brady also got manhandled by the Denver defense and he walked up to the podium post-game and admitted they kept him off balance and outplayed New England. Brady is a cheater, liar and a dick, but he was able to get up there and do his job, even when the outcome of the game was not pleasant. You know you've handled shit poorly when you're making Tom Brady look decent.
Newton is getting hammered in the media today about how he chose to handle his SB defeat, and rightfully so. I've heard many excuses made as to why he should be cut some slack; he's young, it was his first huge loss, he could hear the Broncos discussing their victory in the same room where he was being quizzed about his defeat. I can understand not wanting to listen to an opposing player excitedly talking about being a champion, but I guarantee you Newton would've been all up in that room doing the same damn thing had the Panthers been victorious. And I'm almost positive that whatever Bronco was on the other side of the curtain, his press conference would've been a lot classier. Up until last night, Peyton Manning had lost more SB's than he'd won and lost badly two years ago. He made some egregious mistakes in that game, but still faced the media afterward and answered every question. Manning was benched for the first time in his life during the season and he also handled that with class. Yes, he has thirteen years on Newton, and a better understanding of what his job entails, but if you wanna play with the big boys, you best learn how to carry yourself in a professional manner. Maybe he will learn from last night, he'll most certainly have to rehab his image in the process, but in handling questions the way he did, he took the focus off of what a remarkable season Carolina had as a team and made it all about himself and how he sulked. Most of his teammates had a terrible game too, but many of them met with the media and answered the difficult questions. Even had Denver not been the team to beat Carolina in the SB, I'd still be rather relieved they didn't win it if only because Cam Newton proved he wasn't ready to be a Super Bowl champion. He has some growing up to do.
The one thing Newton did comment on in his presser was that Denver didn't do anything special during the course of the game. Evidently he wasn't watching the same game the rest of us were. Denver's defense was spectacular, holding the best offense in football to just ten points, denying Newton a single touchdown throw and sacking him six times, two of them for fumbles that led to points. The Broncos never trailed in Super Bowl 50 purely because Carolina's plan backfired. They won the opening coin toss but elected to give Denver the ball, perhaps in the mistaken belief that the Carolina D would force us to go three and out and then Newton and company would go down, score and take control of the game. Carolina had done this all season long, jumping out to huge leads on their opponents and slowly crushing their confidence. But from the moment they got the ball, they seemed out of sorts. Everybody who's followed Denver this year knows we don't score a whole lot, so the game plan had to be not to allow Carolina to jump out to any kind of a lead. And in that way, the Broncos gave the Panthers a taste of their own medicine - jumping out to a modest lead and then destroying anything that started to resemble a productive drive. The Denver defense won the SB, plain and simple. Maybe Newton was so pressed because his fumbles turned out to be the difference, but his receivers dropped or missed easy passes, his running back couldn't move the ball and his offensive line couldn't protect him for crap. All year, Carolina won as a team and, twice, they lost as a team; once in a game that didn't matter and once in a game that meant everything. It's too bad that Cam Newton's true colors may be uglier than we all thought they were.
