Before Super Bowl 50 even ended Cam Newton was taking criticism he didn’t deserve. On the CBS broadcast, play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, a former quarterback who left the pocket hesitantly if ever, questioned whether Newton showed enough effort diving for a fumble late in Carolina’s 24-10 loss to the Denver Broncos.
Putting too much credence in what Simms said might go too far. But: this was the national broadcast, reaching hundreds of millions and here was Cam Newton, the most physically daring and brave quarterback in the league, facing criticism that would never be lobbed anywhere near Peyton Manning, who likely walked off into the sunset with an extra tick of validation because he happened to play on a team with a dominant defense that happened to play a team that under-performed for the second time in a 19-game season.
Had Manning hesitated briefly before attempting to recover a football he would have been called savvy, and for any number of reasons. He was trying to read the bounce. He knew not to sacrifice his body because he’s too valuable. Whatever. Fact is, Manning has put dozens of fumbles on the ground in his career and in many cases was never athletic enough to get close to recovering them. That was not anything anyone even expected of him.
Newton is always held to a different standard. He did run toward the ball on the ground, then stopped awkwardly before reaching to try to get it. He would not divulge much about what happened on that play — or anything else — during a tense post-game press conference that lasted only a few minutes.
His coach, Ron Rivera, saw nothing unique about it.
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“He was trying to find a chance to grab the ball and to stay alive,” Rivera said. And that may have been the case: Newton does all he can to keep plays going, and in this case he aborted his attempted dive because in the nanosecond of time allotted him to make a decision he relied on what for him is basically instinct and tried to extend the play. From a distance it looked wrong; to him it was natural. Newton isn’t here because he usually does what is safe or reasonable.
Pretending the way he played that ball could have had anything to do with courageousness or the willingness to sacrifice is disingenuous at best and … at worst? Race has something to do with it. So does the fact that Newton spent every game up until this one dancing and dabbing and challenging people to stop him.
His postgame press conference has already become a controversy. Bill Romanowski, an awful person who once played in the NFL, already tweeted about it: “You will never last in the NFL with that attitude. The world doesn’t revolve around you, boy! #CamNewton.”
And so we come to this: When a player scores he is to remain only a certain kind of happy. And when he loses he is to remain a certain kind of sad. There are boundaries, and extremes won’t be tolerated. On the field, though, even perceived evidence of anything other than 100 percent effort is proof of insufficient character.
Of course Newton sulking through a press conference should only endear him to Carolina fans, who felt the same way.
You can imagine the critics now. Newton will probably be scolded for not giving his opponents credit.
“It weren’t nothing special that they did,” he said. “We dropped balls, we turned the ball over, gave up sacks, threw errant passes, that’s it. We lost.”
Of course he also said: “They just played better than us.” Newton was raw and did not want to talk and that was reasonable, as he had just taken part in a game he will always regret. Why is gritting through something so devastating considered the right way to be a role model? It’s not like Newton failed to shake hands or stormed off the field immediately. He showed plenty of grace when it mattered.
His teammates were more willing to talk — more professional about it, some will say — but uttered mostly nothing.
Newton’s center, Ryan Kalil, was asked about whether he’d talked to the quarterback since the game ended and took an easy out by saying no. He also avoided a question about what Newton said and how he acted as the fiercest pass rush the Panthers have seen this year tore at him throughout the game.
Rivera said Newton was good at points but missed some throws.
The Panthers are protective of Newton. They know he must be ebullient and unrestrained to play well and that the opposite will be true when he loses, so they try to push what other people think about him toward the middle ground. They value Newton and are fascinated by him but do nothing to reveal more than he reveals of himself.
Newton was the NFL’s MVP and, at age 26, is entering his prime. But Carolina, contrary to what tight end Greg Olsen said after the game, may not be built to last. The secondary is weak and could lose its best player, Josh Norman, in free agency. The offensive line, obviously, could use an upgrade.
It’s hard to imagine Newton won’t return to the biggest stage, though. Partly because he’s made for it, but more so because he is a singular talent who makes defenses deal with 11 players on every single play. Give him a legitimate wide receiver (Kelvin Benjamin should return next year), a left tackle other than Michael Oher and a healthy running back (Jonathan Stewart appeared to lack burst) and this game ends much differently.
Then you remember Dan Marino. He played in the Super Bowl after his second season and never returned. His lack of a title hurts his legacy in a superficial way; when people sit around and debate legacy as if it were a math problem he loses points. But in reality it does little: He’s seen as a brilliant quarterback who was never surrounded by enough talent or had enough luck.
Will Newton be treated the same way if this is his last time at the Super Bowl? Almost certainly not. He will shoulder the fault no matter his stats, no matter how he flings himself toward fumbles, no matter how gracious he is in defeat. He could just hug a lineman and jog off after scoring and take a class from Russell Wilson in how to say nothing but sound nice in a press conference but he can’t change the fact that he’ll always play the most high-profile position in sports differently than anyone else.
Or the color of his skin.
Newton knows that. That’s why he had so little to say before gliding off, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his hoodie. Dive. Don’t dive. It never seems to matter.
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