Thanks for this well-thought-out post — I’m not a Carolina fan, but I like Cam Newton; I like him a lot. He’s talented, passionate and honest about who he is and because of that he gets a lot of criticism. I was sort of disappointed when I saw the clips of the walk off after the press conference but chalked it up to what has to have been paralyzing disappointment of losing a big game, THE big game. I didn’t see it as poor sportsmanship because I’d seen him go up to Manning with honest congratulations and that megawatt smile — I saw it as a proud man who had just suffered a huge blow to his confidence, especially considering the stupid questions the reporters always throw at the losing team.

I did not consider or notice that he could hear Harris speaking — I also did not consider how the media framed the whole thing to show him in the poorest light possible. He could have handled it better, sure, but so could the media. Cam’s a young player with years ahead of him — he’ll be back and like as not he’ll still be criticized for not being everything to everyone.