• Cam Newton, Face of Panthers, Showed Zero Grace in Defeat

    From The BIG Mouth That Wrote Bad Checks@21:1/5 to All on Tue Feb 9 09:23:13 2016
    XPost: alt.sports.football.nfl, alt.sports.football.pro, alt.sports.football.pro.ariz-cardinals
    XPost: triangle.general

    SANTA CLARA, Calif. — There was no humiliation to be found in
    Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton’s performance on the
    field at the Super Bowl. The Denver Broncos’ defenders charged
    like banshees and werewolves, coming over and under and hurtling
    around the Panthers’ blockers.

    The young quarterback was sacked six times, and fumbled when the
    man-mountain known as Von Miller tossed him to the turf. He
    scrambled gamely and tossed some brilliant javelin throws. But
    if his was a less than stellar night, that can happen on the
    grandest of stages.

    His humiliation came after the game, however, and it was self-
    imposed.

    Newton, 26, an ebullient, intelligent, gifted quarterback,
    decided to act in his moment of truth like a 13-year-old. He
    slouched into the interview room late, well after many of his
    teammates — rookies and veterans alike — who gamely answered
    painful questions.

    He took a seat, a blue sweatshirt hood pulled low over his face.
    He made eye contact with no one. What did he make of the game?
    Was he surprised? How could he explain? ... The reporters’
    questions, not a surprise in the batch, were framed gently, as
    if put forward by dimwitted therapists. For more than a minute,
    Newton stared at the floor, scratched his chin and sulked.

    Anything he would do differently? “No.”

    What did his coach tell the team? “He told us a lot of things.”

    Did the Denver defense take away Carolina’s running lanes? “No.”

    He offered a few more monosyllables and walked away.

    It was as if Newton was intent on taking his magical season, his
    jumping jacks and dabs and evident leadership, and poking a hole
    in its side. He let his charisma and leadership drain away, to
    be replaced by a soup of the sour and the petulant. And in doing
    so, he confirmed the judgment of more than a few Broncos
    defenders, who spoke afterward of trying to push him off his
    game psychologically.

    The postgame news conference can be a numbing rite of passage,
    when aching and bruised and torn men must take a round of
    questions before leaving their season in the rearview mirror.
    Some questions can be cringe-worthy, although most are matter-of-
    fact. The Panthers rookie wide receiver Devin Funchess took
    question after question. “It was playoff ball, man, they
    exploded off the ball,” he said. “It hurts.”

    And their big defensive end, Charles Johnson, spoke of not
    having “the energy we usually have.”

    “We didn’t execute like we usually do,” he added.

    Over in the corner of the interview room, only the top-paid
    player on the team, the marquee man, came up short.

    So often we feed our perceptions through the desultory sausage
    maker of race, and Newton’s postgame performance is being
    treated on Twitter as a referendum on such questions. This is
    unfortunate, not to mention silly. Newton’s Panthers teammates
    and coaches who stood and answered questions, painfully, gamely,
    were black, white and Latino, veteran and rookie alike.

    Grace in defeat observes no racial litmus test. The white
    Detroit Pistons center Bill Laimbeer was a graceless cad in
    defeat. Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, to name two, were sterling
    gold. Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich has turned surliness into a
    shtick that should be beneath him. Patriots quarterback Tom
    Brady behaved well two weeks back, as did Seahawks quarterback
    Russell Wilson the week before that.

    And so, on and on it goes. It’s simply pleasing to come across
    an athlete who in the face of, yes, inevitable and not terribly
    interesting questions, and on the heels of a tough defeat,
    carries himself well. And it can be a part of the elixir that
    constitutes leadership, as the Broncos defenders suggested.

    Newton did not put up a particularly poor effort in the game,
    which was hardly one for the ages, this penalty-strewn,
    butterfingered, butter-toed exercise in Denver outlasting its
    opponent. Peyton Manning, the ancient mariner of a Broncos
    quarterback, was reduced to gesturing and fakes, and little
    more. His team was inert, the offense consisting of a mind-
    numbing set of nowhere runs and Manning passes that went a yard
    or two, or three.

    Manning’s throws resembled whiffle balls; one hung so softly in
    the air that defensive end Kony Ealy simply reached out and
    intercepted it with a single hand.

    The Broncos’ defense was brilliant, except when its cornerback
    Aqib Talib grabbed at an opponent’s face mask and tried to twist
    his head off like a mad farmer with a chicken. Talib received
    three flags in the first half; in most sports, he would have
    been sent to the showers. He said those penalties were a bunch
    of nonsense, although he said it in stronger terms, adding, “One
    I just did on purpose, and I just had to show him.”

    Then Talib talked about how special it was that his children
    watched him that night. That passed for a heartwarming N.F.L.
    moment.

    The mesmerizing figure, however, was Newton, who is prodigiously
    talented. As an ESPN writer noted, Newton, at 6-foot-5 and 245
    pounds, is bigger than any player on the Green Bay Packers’
    championship team in Super Bowl I. He reads offenses with
    intensity, and he is that rare pocket passer who can dodge and
    break off loping runs.

    He can be, in other words, an awful lot of fun to watch.

    He resembled a water bug in a jar Sunday, jumping this way and
    that; he was game in taking on that relentless Broncos defense.
    For long stretches of the second and third quarters, he was the
    most exciting player on the field. He finished 18 of 41 for 265
    yards, and he fumbled twice.

    By the final quarter, however, his body language spoke to demons
    taking possession of his house. Denver linebacker DeMarcus Ware
    laid him out. As Newton bounced off the turf, he gave an annoyed
    look, a princeling not accustomed to such tough handling.

    He wandered to the Panthers’ sideline. The Panthers trailed just
    16-7. Three weeks ago, I had watched Newton rally his team,
    doing jumping jacks, leaping and exchanging chest bumps with his
    receivers and runners.

    Not now. He wandered down the sideline and stared into space.
    Then he put his hands on his knees and stared at the ground for
    14 seconds.

    Later, slowly, he wandered back to his bench. He walked to his
    offensive line — a porous lot this night — and slapped two
    hands. Then he wandered off again.

    Afterward, the Broncos said this was the Newton, the young star
    too easily rattled and perhaps not yet equal to his moment, they
    hoped to unleash.

    “Hey, when things don’t go his way, we see the body language —
    it’s obvious,” Broncos safety T.J. Ward said of Newton. “That’s
    what we wanted to do. That was our intent: to come in this game
    and get the body language going. We didn’t want the happy, fun-
    spirited, dabbing Cam. No, we want the sulking, upset, talking
    to my linemen, my running backs, ‘I don’t know what’s going on’
    Cam Newton — and that’s what we got.”

    CONTINUE READING THE MAIN STORY
    528
    COMMENTS
    And that on-the-field Cam was prologue to the postgame
    denouement.

    This need not be Newton’s epitaph. Newton has fine mentors from
    whom he can learn grace, among them the Hall of Fame quarterback
    Warren Moon, who endured years of racially tinged self-imposed
    exile in Canada in the 1980s before an N.F.L. team consented to
    allow him to take snaps and lead a team.

    Newton’s talents are many and varied. His challenge is to prove
    himself equal to leading his fine team to the Super Bowl.

    Comments:

    Skydog Sky Woodland hills ca 11 minutes ago
    So much for the " very explosive offense" a lot of naysayers
    were saying the broncos were the underdogs
    Ayyy? Superman met his kriptonite! !!! Who's laughing now????

    Reply Recommend
    myes1958 Chgo 11 minutes ago
    Physical talent, yes, of course. Maturity, professionalism
    and/or leadership traits? He whiffed. Grab some bench.

    Reply Recommend
    Dadof2 New Jersey 11 minutes ago
    To be fair, Cam Newton was battered and shell-shocked by the 2nd
    quarter, with his mouth open trying to get enough air.
    And yet, when the game was over, he was gracious to the Denver
    Broncos, and exchanged kind words and smiles with Peyton Manning.
    It was only after, when attacked by the piranhas, er, I mean
    reporters that he was sullen, giving them even more grist to
    gleefully post to their newscenters.

    But he's young yet, and, hopefully, will learn. He's had a GREAT
    season, an awesome season, but the Superbowl went badly for him
    because it went badly for his offensive line, who were simply
    beaten by the amazing Denver defensive line and linebackers.

    Even the young Joe DiMaggio was known to be sullen and sulky
    after losses.

    Reply 3Recommend

    Sixofone The Village 11 minutes ago
    “One I just did on purpose, and I just had to show him.”

    This is a big reason why I stopped watching football years ago,
    except for the occasional Super Bowl. Not that poor
    sportsmanship and unnecessary brutality are anything new, but
    they just seem uglier to me with each passing year.

    So maybe I'll tune in again for SB LII or LIII. Then again,
    maybe not.

    Reply Recommend
    James Bland Alberta, Canada. 11 minutes ago
    Hubris was a theme of the ancient Greeks so clearly Mr. Newton
    is not the first to fall its victim, though admittedly he does
    provide a pretty spectacular example. Although it's been said
    that adversity doesn't build character but rather reveals it,
    it's reasonable to believe that he will ultimately benefit from
    this experience. And if he's looking for role models he need
    look no further than his head coach, whom I expect was no
    happier with the game than was Mr. Newton but whose own comments
    in a post-game interview epitomized sportsmanship in defeat.
    Incidentally, if Warren Moon would ever like to visit his land
    of "exile" those of us fortunate enough to have watched him play
    here "on the cold western prairies" would be thrilled.

    Reply Recommend
    Marin H Chicago, IL 11 minutes ago
    You conveniently left out when Cam answered "we were
    outplayed.....we had missed opportunities..." to suit your
    article.
    And the question that caused him to walk off was inquired how
    Cam felt about his team, which we all know is a bait to get Cam
    to point fingers or place blame. The media would've loved any
    answer that would give them the opportunity to spin it into "Cam
    doesn't like his team". So he did the right thing, said "I'm
    done" and walked off. Sometimes saying less is more. Tracy
    McGrady did the same thing when asked similar questions after
    his team was eliminated from the playoffs. I appreciate when
    players protect one another from such baiting and trolling.
    That's being a team both on and off the field.
    It's easy to claim you know how you'd react (apparently with
    smiles and joy about "the blessing of playing in the
    SuperBowl"?) when you've never been in Cam's shoes. It's obvious
    Cam wears his emotions on his sleeve and is equally passionate
    about both winning and losing. I'll take his somber short
    answers over fake exuberance or a finger pointing, profanity
    laced tirade any day of the week.

    FlagReply 1Recommend

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/sports/super-bowl-carolina- panthers-cam-newton.html?_r=0
     

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)