KITTY LITTER
Newton’s dream season ends with an awful thud
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The dab is dead until further notice. There would be no dabbing on this night for Cam Newton — the biggest night of his NFL career, a night when the Panthers superstar was attempting to complete one of the greatest seasons a quarterback has ever delivered.
As it does for every team that loses the Super Bowl, the end came in almost violent abruptness.
Broncos 24, Panthers 10 in Super Bowl 50 on Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium sucked the life from every one of the Carolina players, but none more than Newton, who had been so brilliant all season.
Newton, who threw 35 touchdown passes and rushed for 10 more in the regular season, finished 18-of-41 for 265 yards with an interception and two lost fumbles that led to 15 Denver points.
When it ends for the Super Bowl loser, the finality of it all is something that players who have experienced it have a diff icult time describing. Some even contend they’d rather not have gotten to the game at all if they were not going to win it.
So just like that Sunday night, blue and orange confetti rained down on the field and Newton and the Panthers, who entered the game with a remarkable 17-1 record, were quickly ushered off the field to make way for the winners’ celebration ceremony.
Suddenly, the 45 touchdowns Newton accounted for of the 54 the Panthers scored in the regular season meant nothing. The league MVP hardware he just received for this season, meant nothing.
No player or coach ever dares to consider the alternative: Losing a Super Bowl.
For the best athletes in the world, it is not in their DNA to enter a game as significant as a Super Bowl worrying about the consequences of not winning it. Most of them would never be in the position to be playing in one if they did.
Newton now has experienced the sickening feeling that former Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme experienced 13 years ago in Carolina’s only other Super Bowl appearance.
Delhomme led the Panthers to within a game-winning Adam Vinatieri field goal of beating the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVIII at the end of the 2003 season.
And he remembers eve r y moment before, during and after that devastating 32-29 loss in Houston as if it were a day ago, not 13 years ago.
“I remember the bus ride to the game,’’ Delhomme recalled in a phone conversation with The Post last week. “I remember the electricity that was going through everybody’ s bodies, getting dressed before the game, walking out to warm ups prior to getting dressed. I remember [then Panthers receiver and current Carolina assistant coach] Ricky Proehl mentioned to us: ‘Guys, your bodies are going to be going through something you’ve never experienced before. Be careful when you warm up. Don’t expend too much energy.’
“I remember the emotions and being in that tunnel about to be introduced as a team. You’re literally watching grown men cry from the emotions of that, thinking, ‘This is everything I’ve ever worked for. I’m about to play in that game.’ ’’
There was a pause in Delhomme’s voice over the telephone.
“You remember all those emotions … and the next thing you know the game starts and it’s football and your confidence is through the roof because you’ve played well that season — obvi- ously because you’re in the Super Bowl,’’ he said. “You play the game and the next thing you know the game is over. The confetti is coming down and you’re standing there saying, ‘Gosh, this is over. We lost.’
“Then you go into the locker room and it’s dead silence. There is a devastation of, ‘OK, we lost and the game is over, the season is over, this team will never be back together again, ever.’ You never know if you’re going to get back. You always think as a player — I know we did — like we’re going to get back to another one. We were able to get back to a championship game two years later, but we just could not get back to a Super Bowl.’’
Newton is so good, still so young and has a very good team around him that you have to figure he’s going to have plenty more chances to get back to Super Bowls. But there, of course, are no guarantees — as Delhomme learned all those years back.