CAM’S TIME HAS COME
Panthers dominate Cards to continue super season
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Superman is soaring into the Super Bowl.
Cam Newton, all but certain to be named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player of 2015, proved his worthiness again with a spectacular performance in Sunday night’s NFC Championship Game.
He threw for 335 yards and three touchdowns and ran for two scores, as the Carolina Panthers steamrolled the Arizona Cardinals, 49-15.
The Panthers advance to Super Bowl 50 to play the Denver Broncos on Sunday, Feb. 7 at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. (3:30 p.m. PST, CTV/CBS).
In his fifth NFL season, the 26-yearold Newton is bursting deeper into superstardom. He makes jaw-dropping plays look easy.
The bigger the game, the better he has played this season. What more can you ask of him?
And he’s hardly a one-man wrecking crew. The Panthers proved again they’re solid in every facet — and they’re proving faster workers than mailmen before a long weekend.
After jumping out to a convincing 24-7 halftime lead against Arizona on Sunday, in two playoff games at Bank of America Stadium this month they outscored Seattle and Arizona by a combined 55-7 in the opening two quarters. Take a moment to digest that. While Seattle made a close game of it in the second half a week ago, Arizona couldn’t eight days later.
Carolina added 10 points without Arizona answer in the third quarter to make it 34-7.
By then, most of the 74,294 on hand were already partying it up.
In garbage time Arizona scored its second touchdown.
Carolina merely answered with another long drive, gashing the Cardinals’ once-proud defence through the air and on the ground.
Newton capped his incredible day by throwing a five-yard touchdown to rookie receiver Devin Funchess. Up 40-15, with 5:26 left, the Panthers converted for two.
A few plays later, Luke Kuechly ran Carson Palmer’s third interception back 22 yards for Carolina’s seventh touchdown.
Palmer threw his fourth interception to Tre Boston — his sixth turnover — with 4:30 remaining.
The Panthers now have won 17 of 18 games this season, including playoffs. They’ve convinced me they’re the real deal.
That’s not to say Denver, possessor of the league’s top defence on paper, can’t beat them. Yet the Panthers’ own Top 10 defence roughed up and flustered Palmer to such an extent, you’re not wrong to be legitimately concerned for Peyton Manning’s health in the Super Bowl.
Those ferocious Carolina defenders ruffled Palmer so much he missed easy throws throughout and committed three of Arizona’s four first-half turnovers in the second quarter. The 13th-year quarterback fumbled twice and was intercepted by Kurt Coleman in the Carolina end zone just before halftime.
Coleman intercepted Palmer again early in the fourth quarter.
Carolina scored on its first three possessions of the game.
After forcing a three-and-out from the Cards, Newton led the Panthers on an eight-play, 39-yard drive for a 45-yard Graham Gano field goal, 5:30 into the first quarter.
Arizona punted again, after picking up only one first down, and Ted Ginn Jr. went to work. First, he nearly scored on the punt return, zipping 22 yards straight upfield before slipping at midfield while trying to make what looked to be an ill-advised sharp cut to the right.
No matter. Four plays and 27 yards of gains later, Newton kept on a readoption pistol keeper to the right, but flipped to Ginn on an end-around. Ginn dashed toward the left sideline, but cut back at the 10 and swung all the way to the right sideline, evading all Cardinals tacklers along the way to cross the goal-line.
Gano’s conversion made it 10-0 for Carolina, with 4:31 still to go in the opening quarter.
Arizona mustered two first downs punted again, then Newton daggered the Cardinals.
On 3rd-and-8 from the Carolina 14-yard line, from pistol formation with a trio of receivers aligned to the right, Newton dropped, had tons of time to wait for Corey Brown to make his deep-crossing cut to the left, in front of deep safety Rashad Johnson, who turned the wrong way.
Newton stuck a dart into Brown’s gut, Johnson spun back around but blew the tackle. Nobody left.
Brown burst down the left sideline the rest of the way for an 86-yard touchdown.
Carolina took that 17-0 lead into the second quarter.
The next three quarters were pretty much all the same. The game’s complexion remained blue, silver and black early in the second half. Newton drove the Panthers 80 yards in 11 plays to eat 7:10 off the clock.
A sack forced a 21-yard Gano field goal, to extend the Panthers’ lead to 27-7.
Three plays after the ensuing kickoff, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald — Arizona’s overtime hero in last week’s 26-20 defeat of Green Bay in the divisional round — dropped an easy third-down slant pass from Palmer. Three-and-out.
Newton and Carolina answered with the emphatic game-ender — and eight-play, 79-yard drive kept alive by a ridiculous 11-yard gain by Newton on a strongman run around right end, and two plays later he scored his second touchdown on the same play — this time frontflipping into the end zone at the goal-line. Still doubt the Panthers? Still unconvinced they’re the best team in the NFL?
They have one more chance, in California, to bring around whatever stubborn holdouts remain.