Cam Slam? Newton looks to add NFL MVP, Super Bowl to CFB title, Heisman
Cam Newton is one win away from achieving something only one other football player has ever done.
By
Jon Solomon
•
2 min read
Cam Newton is one win away from achieving something only one other football player has ever done.
Newton won the Heisman Trophy and college football’s national championship at Auburn, and he’s expected to capture the NFL Most Valuable Player award next week. If Newton leads the Carolina Panthers to a win in Super Bowl 50 over the Denver Broncos, he will pull off a college football/NFL grand slam that only running back Marcus Allen (Southern California, Los Angeles Raiders) has previously accomplished.
Newton’s potential achievement would be more impressive than that of Allen, who won a college football national title in 1978 as a USC freshman, rushing 31 times for 171 yards. Newton was the driving force for Auburn’s national championship in 2010, his only year at the school.
Newton is expected to become only the sixth player to win the Heisman and Associated Press NFL MVP, joining Barry Sanders, Earl Campbell, O.J. Simpson, Paul Hornung and Allen. Adding college and pro championships on top of that is even more difficult.
Consider the case of Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, who will oppose Newton in Super Bowl 50. Manning has five NFL MVP awards and a Super Bowl ring, but he barely lost the 1997 Heisman Trophy to Michigan's Charles Woodson, and Manning's college, Tennessee, won the national title the year after he left school. That’s how difficult it is to achieve the college football/NFL grand slam, which might as well be called the Cam Slam if Newton does it.
In some ways, Manning and Newton are bookends to a remarkable period of SEC football. Manning helped increase the SEC’s exposure from 1994-97 during the infancy of the conference's television deal with CBS and right before the BCS began. Manning went No. 1 overall in the 1998 NFL Draft; he represented the SEC's first top pick since Auburn linebacker Aundray Bruce in 1988.
Newton was a once-in-a-generation, one-year wonder at Auburn in 2010 after transferring in from Blinn College following a falling out at Florida. The attention that descended on Newton was much different than that Manning received for being the son of Ole Miss legend Archie Manning. A recruiting scandal surfaced for Newton as the NCAA determined his father sought money in exchange for his son’s commitment to Mississippi State. By the time Newton went No. 1 in 2011, the SEC had produced four top NFL picks after Manning.
For the third time in NFL history, two former SEC quarterbacks will meet in the Super Bowl. The others: Manning vs. Rex Grossman (Florida) in 2007 and Ken Stabler (Alabama) vs. Fran Tarkenton (Georgia) in 1977.
Newton is trying to become the first Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback to win the Super Bowl since Jim Plunkett (the 1970 winner) did so with the Raiders in 1984. Newton vs. Manning is only the fourth Super Bowl in the past 22 years featuring two first-round quarterbacks, joining Aaron Rodgers vs. Ben Roethlisberger in 2011, Manning vs. Grossman in 2007 and Trent Dilfer vs. Kerry Collins in 2000.
Super Bowl 50 will create a unique first. Newton vs. Manning marks the first Super Bowl between quarterbacks who were No. 1 overall draft picks. All of those Super Bowls and No. 1 selections on quarterbacks (there have been 20 in the Super Bowl era) had yet to yield top QB picks meeting in the sport's biggest game.
Now Newton is one win away from reaching a grand slam that football players dream of achieving but only one has accomplished.
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