Cam Newton wouldn't trade MVP Award for Super Bowl Ring

[PNW_PantherMan]

I thought the Allen Iverson comparison was a good one.  Both players had short peaks, but were goat level for a brief period.  Both players lost in the finals and didn’t win the championship.  Court was pretty tilted for the Lakers if I recall.

[outlaw4]

First off, I'm not a big fan of these hypotheticals. 

Second, I'm often skeptical of what people say in that type of forum. Far too many saying things because shock value equals attention. 

Third, a football team is - at minimum - 50+ players plus coaches and all the support staff on and off the field.  I personally don’t like this notion as much but the quarterback is usually the face of the franchise, the leader. You give up your body and soul for everyone around you to where individual achievements are secondary if it means you leave the field as the ultimate winner along with everyone else. To this day, I still remember Thomas Davis utterly broken after losing the SB and the man played with a busted arm. You're telling me an MVP award isn't worth giving up if it meant he could've cried tears of joy instead? To give all those kids that special moment in their lives watching a victory parade? To put that cherry on the top for every fan here on that 2015 season instead of us still wondering if we'll ever see the Panthers lifting the Lombardi within our lifetimes?

I don't know, man. Maybe it's just how I view leadership as being so much more about those around you than yourself. 

[flagfootballcoach28]

Not surprising. Can’t think of any other MVP winning QB who would say this. 

[Osaka Panther]

Cam said he did his job. 

Um no, your job was to win a super bowl. 

We didn't draft you to win MVP

[BIGH2001]

This is probably a guy who should have faded into the limelight after his playing days were over. Even when he was playing it was better when he didn’t talk too much because something stupid was bound to come out of his mouth. Not sure that giving him a bigger microphone is the solution. 

[NAS]

I will always love Cam for what he did for the franchise but that was a self centered response. Imagine if he said “Yes” because of what it would mean for the franchise and the fans. He is already a legend but a SB win as a franchise QB would have solidified his status much more than the MVP. 

[NCBlu]

Cant change the past. Cam was the reason the team was even there in the 1st place. 15-1 didn't not happen without a good Qb. If they had WRs or any blocking at all the SB would have went different or maybe the refs should not have allowed Den to cheat and cheap shot our QB all game.

Philly Brown head almost got twisted off on a face mask at the 1 that the player said he did become he could, should have been throw out the game or the illegal batting of the ball backwards for  Den to help score a TD. 

The fact Cam was even able to play the whole game says something 

I do find it funny everyone talks about the fumble but not head shoots Cam took or the other dirty plays all game. I lost a lot of respect and love for the NFL after that season that to this day has not come back.

[MHS831]

I see both sides.  It is a bit self-centered, but athletes are self-centered by nature.  You have to be.  When you are in high school, you are promoting yourself to get a scholarship, not the team.  When you are in the gym, you are making yourself better, even though you know there are teammates not working a hard as you.  In college--the competition on the team is intense; I was seventh on the TE depth chart in college as an incoming freshman; my thoughts were:  "I have six guys I have to beat."  They were not my friends; it was easier that way.  Remmers and the refs (people wondered if Peyton Manning's swan song was rigged) kept Cam from winning both. 

Funny, but most people don't think about the athlete's rise to prominence--all the people he had to beat, all the humiliation he caused others to get where he is.  Then they don't think about the end of an athlete's career.  All athletes come from different places and have different stories. You enter the arena alone and you leave it alone.  Very few go out on good terms.  All athletes die young.

Edited 7 hours ago by MHS831

[mav1234]

Disappointing and I think most of us fans would gladly trade that mvp for a Superbowl win.  But 1) Cam doesn't always express himself well and sometimes that makes him come off poorly when his intentions are different (I don't think that's this but ... ), 2) He's a pundit now and I have a suspicion that Cam 10 years ago would have said something different. Finally, whatever he says now that may sound selfish, doesn't change how much he did for the team, so... Meh.

[CPcavedweller]

22 hours ago, Doc Holiday said:

This isn’t news, his career in the NFL is over, he was never gonna say anything else. If I were in his shoes I wouldn’t either.

It doesn't have to be an either/or question considering he had one opportunity for both. 

Accepting of individual awards in place of a team accomplishment in the ultimate team sport just shows that maybe some of the criticism about Cam only being worried about Cam was, and remains, accurate. I won't dive into the psychology of the man but he does have some traits that are indicative of some reasons why he could never maintain a high level of success, and why people in the building were afraid to truly hold him to account so he could get better.

We never saw a leap in Cam's performance like we did with Bryce this year. Obviously Bryce's floor was so low that he had no where to go, but up, but he went from cut bait to scoring 5 touchdowns against a team competing for a playoff spot. That took a long look in the mirror, and real work, and accountability from everyone in the building to make that change; we never saw that from Cam.

I am on record as a Bryce detractor as well, before you go down that road. 

[CPcavedweller]

1 hour ago, mav1234 said:

Disappointing and I think most of us fans would gladly trade that mvp for a Superbowl win.  But 1) Cam doesn't always express himself well and sometimes that makes him come off poorly when his intentions are different (I don't think that's this but ... ), 2) He's a pundit now and I have a suspicion that Cam 10 years ago would have said something different. Finally, whatever he says now that may sound selfish, doesn't change how much he did for the team, so... Meh.

Cam may have said something different before, and it mnay have been a lie. And this is the issue I'm having with Cam as I listen to more and more of him away from football. He almost seems anti-social in a way, and extremely superficial. I never bought into those criticisms before but some of that is surfacing now. 

[PantherBoy95]

17 minutes ago, CPcavedweller said:

Cam may have said something different before, and it may have been a lie. And this is the issue I'm having with Cam as I listen to more and more of him away from football. He almost seems anti-social in a way, and extremely superficial. I never bought into those criticisms before but some of that is surfacing now. 

When you say anti-social where does that come from/what have you seen? I felt like he'd probably been showing more of his personality, but I'm also not as tuned in to some of his newer projects.

[DeAngelo Beason]

Objectively speaking, MVP is a much, much greater accomplishment than winning the super bowl.  Only 11 players in history have won multiple MVPs.  Many, many, many more have won multiple super bowls.  To be the absolute best player in the league is an individual accomplishment only one guy can achieve each year.  Winning the superbowl is something 53 guys each year get to achieve.