Keidel: Newton's Legs Could Ultimately Decide Sunday's Big Game
By Jason Keidel
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With the blinding spotlight on Cam Newton's dazzling season, the public and pundits seem to have missed the most underrated and understated facets of Super Bowl 50.
Either we chat up Cam Newton versus Peyton Manning, the fledgeling versus the franchise, or the Broncos' historically stingy defense. But we are oddly mute over the Panthers' running game, which is probably the key to this football game.
Everyone thinks the ancient codas about defense and championships, leaning on a robust running game, the smash-mouth football of the old NFC East, has gone the way of the single-wing.
But Carolina was second in the NFL in rushing, with 142.2 yards per game. And beyond Newton's 35 regular-season passing touchdowns, he added another 10 with his legs -- all in the red zone -- which makes him exponentially harder to stop.
When he runs the option, do you lunge toward Jonathan Stewart? Then Newton tucks the ball and gashes you for a first down. Or do you dive at Newton and let Stewart gouge you for 20 yards?
Or does Newton do neither, step back, and fling the ball at Greg Olsen for his 80th catch, 70th first down, or nth touchdown? (All slight exaggerations, of course, for effect.)
Newton does more than bluff behind center. He rushed 132 times for 646 yards, averaging 4.8 yards per carry. That's a decent season for a halfback, much less a quarterback. For instance, Jeremy Hill led the potent, 12-4 Bengals with 794 rushing yards, averaging 3.6 yards per rush. Newton's touchdown total is double that of the next-highest QB, Kirk Cousins, who's hardly known as a dual-threat. Newton has more rushing TDs than nimble quarterbacks like Colin Kaepernick, Marcus Mariota, Ryan Tannehill, Alex Smith, and Aaron Rodgers combined.
Entering the playoffs, Newton was responsible for 81.8 percent of the Panthers' touchdowns. He now enters the Super Bowl with 50 total touchdowns. But beyond his arm it's his legs that have the Broncos' knees buckling. Heading into Sunday he will have a total of 12 scores on the ground in 18 total games.
In the quintessential team endeavor, Newton has somehow taken over without polarizing his teammates.
This is all happening sans their best skill player, Kelvin Benjamin, the seocnd-year sensation who was done for the 2015 season before it began. Newton has somehow shined, spreading the ball and love around like butter across the roster.
The Broncos allowed a microscopic 283.3 yards per game, including 199 yards in the air -- a remarkable number given the NFL's liberal, legislative climate toward passing. But their splendid secondary won't be able to stop Newton from scampering out of the pocket. Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware's two-pronged assault on the pocket won't keep Cam from darting up the middle for a dozen yards on any one play. In fact, with their rocket-fueled outside rush to the passer, they will funnel Newton toward the first down. Newton is too big for safeties to corral, and too fast for linebackers to spy on him.
That's what makes this game so hard to pick and so hard for the Broncos to game-plan. In the AFC title game, Denver rushed three linemen 14 times, more than it had all season, and still pounded Tom Brady at least 20 times. Adding an extra body to pass coverage while still stalking the QB is an almost unfair advantage.
But Brady, for all his Super Bowl splendor, is no Cam Newton -- at least not running the ball. Newton adds an unprecedented dimension to the game, morphing into the monstrous, hybrid quarterback we all thought Kaepernick would become. Newton now has played 25 games in which he's scored a rushing and passing touchdown, and is already second all-time, behind Hall of Famer Steve Young.
And if Newton or Stewart fall to fatigue, they have a bull of a fullback in Mike Tolbert, who averaged a respectable 4.1 yards per carry while spelling Stewart.
If you're sick of stats, and adhere to the Don Shula maxim that the only salient statistic is on the scoreboard, then consider the bump Cam has given Carolina in the standings. The Panthers are 48-32-1 since drafting Newton, their rate of winning jumped from 46 to 59 percent.
And despite the league-wide new passing tableau, the Panthers are decidedly old-world. They win with running first, passing second. And no one does either -- or both -- better than Cam Newton does right now.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel