Thanks to a 49-15 trouncing of the Arizona Cardinals Sunday night, the Carolina Panthers will be center stage on Feb. 7, playing under the bright lights of Super Bowl 50. And while they’ve made it this far, it hasn’t been easy, as the Panthers' prowess on the field has been overshadowed at times by naysayers’ doubts in the press and the public -- a fact that quarterback Cam Newton perhaps knows better than anybody.
So after a campaign in which every week brought a new criticism, every game a new challenge, Newton stood at the podium after clinching the NFC Championship on Sunday and used the most perfect, most Carolinian metaphor to describe the long haul that was the club’s 2015 season.
I’m excited, I’m excited. I said it then and I'm going to say it now: It was a process. It wasn’t going to be -- what’d I say? -- it wasn’t going to be instant grits, quick grits. It was going to be a process, like long-cooked collard greens. I think those collard greens are brewing right now -- you can smell them from a mile away.
We smell them all right, Cam. And after the MVP candidate’s explosive performance last night, even the Panthers’ naysayers must be getting a whiff of those sweet Carolinian collard greens.
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