Cam Newton emerges as NFL's LeBron

Cam Newton emerges as NFL's LeBronCam Newton walked to the podium after the biggest win in his Jack Eichel Jerseycareer wearing a stern look and a black winter hat with a huge puffball on top of it. He flashed looks ranging from quizzical to amused as he answered questions, his grin twisting and his eyes scanning. Asked about teammate Thomas Davis' hands play that secured the Seahawks' last-gasp onside kick attempt and clinched a trip to the NFC championship game for the Panthers, Newton wondered aloud why he wasn't on the hands team. He commented about not wearing gloves like some quarterbacks do, and lauded his "organic hands." Then, after one long-winded question he playfully http://www.officialsabresteamshop.com/Womens_Youth_Jack_Eichel_Jersey asked, "Are you done?" After another question about whether he had something to say to the "little dabbers" out there, he said, "Hi." Then: "I don't want to say anything to offend anyone." He smiled as a punctuation mark. This is the kind of thing that drives onlookers batty. It comes off as aloof or arrogant. "Is he serious with this?" is a likely refrain about everything from his postgame comments to his end-zone celebrations to his pregame warm-up shirt, with an illustration of he and his newborn son, Chosen, dabbing. "Nobody gets him," says rookie receiver Devin Funchess. "They don't. But if you sit with him for a week or even for http://www.officialsabresteamshop.com/Womens_Youth_Jack_Eichel_Jersey half a day, you get it." What Funchess gets, and what the entire Panthers roster seems to get, is that Newton is both goofy and earnest, both the guy who leads dance battles at practice and the guy who shows up at the crack of dawn to work on an extra route. A lot of quarterbacks are ultra-serious, or nerdy; that's how a lot of fans like it. Newton is a cut-up as well as a cutthroat competitor. The stern look and the poof on his hat are both real, even if they aren't always embraced. "They don't know," Funchess Antoine Vermette Jerseysays of the outsiders. "They always want to bring somebody down." Asked if he thinks Newton minds the spite, the rookie scoffs. "Small thing to a giant." Newton is no longer an up-and-coming quarterback from a middling team. He is LeBron James http://www.officialcoyotesproshop.com/Womens_Youth_Brad_Richardson_Jerseyin the first Cleveland run: so dominant and impactful that the rest of the sport is going to have to deal with it. Like "The King" back then, there is resentment and misunderstanding. But like James in the early years of his prime, there is no answer for him under the lights and no avoiding his persona on camera. He came into this year after a seven-win regular season and without his star receiver, Kelvin Benjamin. His options beyond Greg Olsen were names like Ted Ginn Jr., Philly Brown and Ed Dickson. He led the Panthers to 14 straight wins. The team is 16-1 now, and it has dispatched the two-time defending conference champions Seahawks, 31-24. Cam Newton has arrived in full. And although the Keep Pounding marrow of this team and its reputation still remains defense, it was Newton who led the highest-scoring offense in the league with 500 points. That's more points than Brady and the Pats, more points than Palmer and the Cardinals. On Sunday, the offense won the game, gashing the vaunted Seahawks with power running and the constant threat of Cam. Sure, Jonathan Stewart was a force for Carolina, but the fear is always that Newton will run or throw. That fear has escalated over every season he has been in the league, kind of like the discomfort people tend to have with his style. That unease is a small thing to a giant. But one question still unanswered has to do with Newton's level of comfort. He joked that players, coaches and fans had their "butts tight" as Seattle came back on Sunday, and he himself seemed agitated at times. He admitted he had a "butts tight" moment, although he added, "As long as I have the football, I feel like we had a chance." That was the case at Auburn, but this is a new level of pressure, and Newton will have to adapt to it. He cannot fully control what comes next the way he controls a news conference, or even a locker room.