Members of the Denver Broncos defense felt that they’d successfully rattled Cam Newton after just six snaps.
The play that did it was Von Miller’s strip sack of Newton, which Malik Jackson picked up for a defensive touchdown to give Denver a 10-0 lead. It was a statement of intent on Denver’s part, and you can see it here:
This, the Broncos said, was the play that made them certain that they had Newton right where they wanted him.
“That play did it,” Denver linebacker Brandon Marshall said, via Yahoo! Sports’s Dan Wetzel. “That play rattled him. We got in his head like that. We got in his mind. He hasn’t been harassed like that all season.”
“That whole team was rattled,” said cornerback Chris Harris Jr. “We started hitting them. Running backs fumbling the ball. Cam throwing picks. He ain’t been hit like how we hit and we showed him today.”
Broncos safety T.J. Ward said that wiping out Newton’s confidence and swagger was all part of the gameplan.
“Hey, when things don’t go his way, we see the body language — it’s obvious,” Ward said, via Steve Reed of the Associated Press. “That’s what we wanted to do. That was our intent to come in this game and get the body language going. We didn’t want the happy, fun-spirited ‘dabbing’ Cam. No, we want the sulking, upset, talking to my linemen, my running backs, ‘I don’t know what’s going on’ Cam Newton — and that’s what we got.”
Newton never looked himself from that point on. He was jumpy and rattled and got hit more than he had all season, so the Broncos plan worked to perfection. It even showed in his treatment of the media after the defeat that Newton wasn’t used to losing quite like this. Don’t worry, Cam. At least Derek Carr knows how it feels.
