Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton spoke before reporters on Wednesday in North Carolina. Newton and his 15-1 team are preparing to leave for the Super Bowl where they will face the Denver Broncos on Sun. Feb. 7 in Santa Clara. There’s nothing new about the team talking to the press midweek, but the former Heisman Trophy winner threw a curve at the media, and the rest of the country, when he said, “I’m an African-American quarterback that may scare a lot of people because they haven’t seen nothing they can compare me to”.
Cam Newton’s Race Comments Are Way Off
That’s a pretty lofty statement from the likely NFL MVP, who is going to his first Super Bowl, and the team’s first since 2003, when they lost to the New England Patriots 32-29. It’s also somewhat bewildering to most folks out there who have seen the former Auburn quarterback take the Panthers from mediocrity to one win away from the organization’s first ever championship. It’s not as though Carolina’s signal caller is the only black quarterback to have ever made it to the Super Bowl. Just in the last two seasons Russell Wilson guided the Seattle Seahawks a Super Bowl win, and he had his team within one play of repeating as Super Bowl champions.
Remember Doug Williams of the Washington Redskins? He certainly wasn’t as flashy or as an impressive physical specimen as is Newton, but he did take his team to the big dance, and was the first black quarterback to start the NFL’s biggest game. Williams was named Super Bowl MVP award in a lopsided 42-10 victory over the Denver Broncos. It was a day to remember for Washington’s quarterback, as he threw for four touchdowns, and over 300 yards passing.
Newton is actually the sixth black quarterback to start a Super Bowl. Besides the aforementioned Williams and Wilson, Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers, Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Steve McNair of the Tennessee Titans also were starters for their respective teams in a Super Bowl. For some reason Cam Newton equated folks who don’t like him to racism, but it seems to go much deeper than skin color for former Auburn signal caller and the rest of the Panthers.
Let’s face facts. No one really took the Panthers and their 15-1 record seriously this season. They were even the underdogs at home against the Seahawks, who won the NFC last season. Ron Rivera’s team has a chip on their shoulder, and they certainly feel like they have something to prove to the rest of America, the league, and their fans. There can be no other reason why Newton felt the necessity to bring up the issue of race a week and half before the biggest and most watched sporting event in the world.
This brings us to the big question of why it was even mentioned at all by Newton. Prior to this season, he had a pretty good start to his career, but he wasn’t lighting up the world, and the Panthers certainly weren’t the cream of the crop in the NFL. Getting to the playoffs with a 7-8-1 record last season is really nothing to boast about, and he’s not the first black quarterback to have success in the league. Furthermore, there’s no one going around saying that the NFL was ‘scared’ to play against all those other black Super Bowl quarterbacks, or any other black players in football.
It sounds like Cam Newton wants to be liked and feels hurt by having so many detractors. Fans around the NFL root for their own team and their own quarterbacks, good or bad, and are basically feel jealousy and animosity towards any quarterbacks, other than their guy, who play in the big game. How many folks, besides those in New England, actually like Tom Brady and the Patriots? The same question could be asked about Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. And the answer is not too many. This author is a big New York Giants fan, and if it’s not Big Blue playing, with Eli Manning under center, then I don’t really care who is playing quarterback in the big game.
Most football fans get that Newton is a good guy, and he and his teammates hand out footballs to kids at home and on the road, and he has a tremendous following, and he does a lot of charity work outside of the game. But that doesn’t mean folks are going to like him better. The majority of players in the NFL are basically good people, and do a lot for their community, charities, etc., without it becoming front page news. It sounds like more of an ego thing than anything else when it comes to the Panthers quarterback. The real story of Super Bowl 50 is Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos entering the Super Bowl as underdogs, and the aged veteran, who is one of the best ever, trying to win one more ring. It’s about whether or not the future Hall of Famer can hoist the Lombardi Trophy a second time, and bring another championship to the Mile High city, and go out as a winner.
There’s so much more to talk about in the two weeks leading up to the dance, than Newton using race as the reason folks view him negatively. Unfortunately, the statements will now dominate the headlines until the teams get to California on Sunday. Can anyone recall if Russell Wilson, or any of those other really good black quarterbacks, said race had anything to do with their success? Newton is truly gifted, and one of the rising stars in the league, but he needs to start realizing that not everyone is against him. It’s just folks who don’t like the Panthers, and that’s ok.
The Panthers signal caller is deserving of the MVP award, and if the Panthers win the Super Bowl, they will be in very rare company as a team to win a Super Bowl with only one loss. The problem is that even with a win and a potential Super Bowl MVP, no one wants to remember that Newton sounded trite and bitter prior to entering the biggest contest of his career. The only color that matters is the Carolina blue and the Denver orange. Yes, race continues to be an issue in America, and it’s something that needs to be addressed, but in this particular case it’s about the Super Bowl, and football fans liking one team over the other.
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