The first tweak came less than a week after the Carolina Panthers returned home from Santa Clara.
Appearing on “Saturday Night Live,” Super Bowl 50 MVP Von Miller joked about the two strip-sacks he had on NFL MVP Cam Newton. Two months later, the Broncos’ outside linebacker had some photo shop fun at Newton's expense:
Hahaha water polo sack!!!
A photo posted by Von Miller (@vonmiller) on
So on Sunday, just four days before the Panthers and Broncos meet again, reporters wanted to know about the relationship between the season opener’s biggest stars.
“Mutual respect,” Newton said.
“Great player. 99 overall in Madden.”
So not only does Miller have a ring, but he's five rating points ahead of Newton, something the avid Madden player couldn’t help but notice. Yet if it were up to Miller, those rankings would look different.
“They've got the best player in the National Football League,” he said.
“The type of player that he is, the type of quarterback that he is, the way that he's able to get his teammates to play at a level that they wouldn't normal play at — I admire him. I admire Cam.
“If I had sons and they wanted to be quarterbacks, I'd point him in the direction of Cam Newton and Peyton Manning. I think that's what all the poking and the fun from me comes from because I really do admire him. I really do respect the hell out of his game.”
And if you believe his comments during Sunday’s conference call, Miller’s respect doesn’t just stop with Newton.
“They only lost two games last year. They were the best team in the regular season. They've got the MVP in the league, the No. 1 player in the league,” Miller said. “I really don't think they'll try to change up much (from the Super Bowl). They had ample opportunities in the game to win and be ahead. They had a lot of plays, they just didn't take full advantage of it.”
Which is what coach Ron Rivera has repeated nearly every time he’s been asked about what went wrong in February. The plays that were there to be made weren't. And it wasn't all on Newton. Or right tackle Mike Remmers. Or offensive coordinator Mike Shula. When a team that went 15-1 in the regular season looks like a shell of itself, multiple things have to go wrong. In the words of another Panthers’ coach, they “picked a bad day to have a bad day.”
214 days after that disappointing Sunday, the Panthers will send out 17 of the same starters that began the Super Bowl. Oh, and a 6-foot-5 wideout who was stuck on the sideline.
“(Kelvin Benjamin) is like a safety blanket for Cam. He’s a deep, really big receiver — really talented, very fast and can jump,” Miller said. “Luckily we have one of the best secondaries in the National Football League. Let me rephrase that: We have the best secondary in the National Football League.”
Thanks to the Miller-led pass rush, Chris Harris, Aqib Talib, T.J. Ward and Darian Stewart didn’t have to stay on their receivers for long during the Super Bowl. But the group that calls itself ’The No Fly Zone’ helped force 23 incompletions, intercepting Newton once while keeping him out of the end zone.
“They're really good,” Newton said with a smile. “I'm telling you, this game on Thursday will be a great game. We want them at their best. I'm pretty sure they want us at our best. What other way would you want to start this season? Going into a hostile environment and getting a big, much-needed win.
“We've all dreamed playing prime-time football. And just to think about it, this is the type of game that you set your legacy, but we're not thinking personal or selfishly like that. We're thinking about trying to maximize the team we're on. We have a lot of talent. They have a lot of talent. It's going to be a really knockdown, drag-out and we're going to be prepared for it.”
And would a win Thursday take at least some of the sting out of what happened in Santa Clara?
“No,” Newton said. “We'll just be 1 and 0.”