took home the Super Bowl MVP trophy<\/a>.<\/p>\nMiller, the game\u2019s MVP, still credits Newton for pushing him to that level, saying, \u201cHe brought the best out of me for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those religiously following the league a decade ago can\u2019t forget the year the Panthers\u2019 star quarterback had in 2015. He became the first African-American quarterback to win the NFL MVP for leading the Panthers to a league-best 15-1 record. He didn\u2019t just play the position; he reinvented it.<\/p>\n
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Recording 35 passing touchdowns and 10 rushing touchdowns, it was his dual-threat peak. As Miller noted, Newton\u2019s greatness forced his opponents to play at a Hall of Fame level just to keep up. But that wasn\u2019t his only motivation.<\/p>\n
Earlier in August, Miller explained that he entered the game with a rare sense of calm, reaching a \u201cflow state\u201d where he didn\u2019t feel any of the typical pre-game jitters. To get himself in the zone, he took a page out of Michael Jordan\u2019s playbook and created a rivalry in his own mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had made it personal,\u201d Miller told Johnny Manziel for a Texas A&M Tell All. \u201cI made things personal, in my mind, with Cam. He was the number one pick, I was number two, and he was the MVP coming into the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
That personal motivation ultimately got him charged up for the game.<\/p>\n
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Miller\u2019s comments serve as a reminder that a player\u2019s career is more than their worst highlight. The late-game fumble was certainly the turning point of that game, but the future Hall of Famer believes it shouldn\u2019t be the turning point of Newton\u2019s entire life story.<\/p>\n
Cam Newton confronts the Super Bowl mistake<\/p>\n
Unlike Miller, Newton has been quite harsh towards himself. It\u2019s been a decade, but the former quarterback admitted that there is a deep, lingering regret that continues to haunt him.<\/p>\n
It happened with just over four minutes remaining in the game. Carolina was trailing 16-10, and Miller just delivered a crushing strip-sack that sent the ball loose near the goal line. As the ball bounced, Newton appeared to hesitate, which gave the Broncos safety T.J. Ward a chance to recover it.<\/p>\n
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The Broncos truly capitalized on that turnover with a touchdown, sealing their 24-10 victory. Just like that, Newton\u2019s historic 15-1 season turned into a heartbreak. While Newton initially defended his actions as a business decision to avoid a catastrophic leg injury, his tone has shifted dramatically a decade later.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt ain\u2019t no excuse for me not jumpin\u2019 on the fumble,\u201d he admitted in 2024 on his 4th & 1 podcast. \u201cI should\u2019ve jumped on the fumble. Straight up. The competitor in me, if that happens again, duh. And this is the Super Bowl\u2014all effort goes to, like, \u2018Yo, Super Bowl energy.\u2019 That wasn\u2019t Super Bowl energy. And I think that is what hurts the most. You don\u2019t get another opportunity to go back; it\u2019s not promised for you to go back.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Newton were given another chance, he\u2019s ready to \u201ctear every ligament\u201d in his leg just to seize that missed opportunity. Because after that, it never presented itself, and he hung his cleats without a single ring on his finger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the world of the NFL, legacies are often boiled down to single plays. For the legendary Cam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2075],"tags":[7571,235,260,2567,7,13456,12527,896,55,6,236,505,34476,7958],"class_list":["post-737719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carolina-panthers","tag-cam-newton","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-carolinapanthers","tag-football","tag-johnny-manziel","tag-michael-jordan","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-nfl","tag-panthers","tag-super-bowl","tag-t-j-ward","tag-von-miller"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116034267013891910","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}