SANTA CLARA, Calif. – On the sixth snap of Cam Newton's Super Bowl, Von Miller charged at him from the edge, hit him face first and promptly ripped the football out of his hands. Just tore it out.
This was grown man stuff. This was violent, blunt-force defense. This was the best player on the Denver Broncos confronting the best player on the Carolina Panthers, and just taking what he wanted – the ball, the Super Bowl, his football soul for the next few hours.
"That play did it," Denver linebacker Brandon Marshall said. "That play rattled [Newton]. We got in his head like that. We got in his mind. He hasn't been harassed like that all season."
This was some unholy stuff, balletic brutality that made him the most important player defensively and offensively – the Super Bowl 50 MVP was far more responsible for Denver's points scored than Peyton Manning.
Maybe more than anything, though, Miller proved to his teammates exactly what they suspected – that for all his size and speed and daps and dances, Newton was capable of being shredded like a paper MVP. Oh, they respected his ability. They didn't trust anything else.
Not the 17-1 record. Not the stats, such as the 31.25-points-a-game average (plus 80 more in two playoff games). Not all the highligh- reel stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment