After watching how Cam Newton quit and wanted nothing to do with that Denver defense and trying to make a comeback, I feel an even greater appreciation for Tom Brady.
My lasting impression of the super bowl is that Cam Newton was all talk. He's not the competitor that Tom Brady is. Brady put his body on the line time after time and made plays down the stretch against that Denver defense. Came up short but he never quit.
While giving proper respect to the Denver defense and Cam Newton's obvious talent, and disclaiming that I didn't see any other Carolina games this season, I was really disappointed in Newton's Super Bowl performance.
All year long I kept hearing about how dynamic he was, such a great runner/play-action QB, but we barely saw any of that in the SB. He had a good per-rush average of 7.5 yards, but he rushed only 6 times, and he didn't seem particularly good at making defenders miss. I realize that much of this had to do with Denver's D—particularly with the fact that they usually had a defender shadowing Newton. I also think the Carolina offensive coordinator did a bad job of mixing things up to try to find something that worked (way too many straight handoffs to Stewart and Tolbert). Still, I didn't see a lot from Newton that made me think, "Yeah, he deserved the MVP."