The Carolina Panthers are brash, bold and even a bit cocky.
Walking away from their media obligations on Tuesday at the San Jose Convention Center, it was clear this Carolina team has massive confidence it will win Super Bowl 50. And while they may not say it publicly, the sense you get is most members of the Panthers doubt the game will even be close.
The leader of the bunch, Cam Newton, was in good spirits at his afternoon press conference. Sporting enough bling to buy a small house on his left wrist and wearing custom Panthers shoes, Newton did a ‘mic check’ to open his presser, joked he’s trilingual (Spanish, English and Ebonics) and even got into a mini-verbal spat with a reporter over his refusal to elaborate on comments he made about race last week.
Newton was thoughtful Tuesday, but had opportunities to go out of his way to heap praise on Peyton Manning and the Broncos defense and elected instead to give fairly short, non-descript answers while speaking on the two subjects.
“… I can’t do it like Peyton can, because only he can do it. I try to translate other things I learned from him or have seen him do or other quarterbacks do in this league and I try to apply it to my own,” Newton said.
Before Newton took the podium, Panthers’ coach and cool customer Ron Rivera rattled off clichés that would make John Fox proud in a rather non-noteworthy meeting with the media. But this much did stand out – Rivera isn’t going to worry about his guys partying too much this week.
“I think what will happen is some of these guys will enjoy being here for the event. To me, the Super Bowl is twofold. One, it’s an event,” Rivera said.
Of course, that sounds awful similar to the philosophy John Fox employed with Denver before Super Bowl XLVIII, as the Broncos partied the nights away in New York, showing up hungover and tired to their early morning media sessions and then playing that way on Super Sunday. Quite simply, if you’re pulling for the Broncos in Super Bowl 50, you should hope Rivera’s lax attitude toward his players ‘enjoying the moment’ this week bites the Panthers in the butt.
Ten other Panthers players were on hand Tuesday, none drawing near the amount of attention as Newton, but they weren’t exactly heaping praise on the Broncos either. Linebacker Shaq Thompson had this to say when asked about Manning: “Like I said, without giving away anything, we’re gonna go out there and play our way of football. How we got here, that’s what…we’re gonna keep that going and it’s gonna be a great game on Sunday.” That’s not exactly an endorsement of what No. 18 can do, or did, to opposing defenses throughout his career.
Safety Kurt Coleman managed to sneak in a dreaded game manager reference when it comes to Manning. “Peyton knows how to put his players in the right position and effectively use the calls, the audibles, to draw guys offside, to put them (in the right position). Whether it be (moving) the run from one side to the other, he just does a great job of managing the game,” Coleman said.
While ultimately it has no barring on the game, in a day and age of old and tired cliches and players going out of their way to make everyone on the opposing team sound like a Hall of Famer, it’s frankly, just a little surprising to see the Panthers approach. By no means do they need to praise the Broncos, but it sure seems like a sign of where they think they stand going into this game.
Whether they stand on the podium Sunday or in a sad, brought-back-down-to-Earth locker room remains to be seen.
