Cam Newton: No regrets on Super Bowl news conference

Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton said Tuesday that he has no regrets for how he handled the Super Bowl news conference, where he mostly said one-word answers and walked off after about three minutes.

“I’ve been on record to say I’m a sore loser,” Newton said at his locker Tuesday morning. “Who likes to lose? You show me a good loser and I’m going to show you a loser.”

He also hinted at how he would have possibly been injured had he dived for the critical fumble late in the game.

“OK. I didn’t get the fumble, but we can play tit for tat,” Newton said. “I’ve seen numerous quarterbacks throw interceptions and their efforts afterwards…they don’t go. I don’t dive on one fumble because the way my leg was, it could have been (contorted) in a way.”

In his four previous seasons, Newton has declined talking to the media in exit interviews. This year is different. Newton, the league MVP two days removed from the Super Bowl 50 loss, spoke for nearly seven minutes about his much-talked-about post-game news conference and a controversial end-of-game play.

Also Tuesday, coach Ron Rivera said: “I'm honored and proud to say I was the head coach of the 2015 Carolina Panthers. The locker room won't be the same. Things will change.”

Here are a few other quotes from Newton’s media availability Tuesday:

On his reflection in the days after Super Bowl 50: “Well I ain’t got no more tears to cry. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. I’ve seen so much blown out of proportion. At the end of the day when you invest so much time, when you sacrifice so much and things don’t go as planned, I think emotions take over. I think that’s what happens. As far as trying to be like this person or that person, I heard numerous quotes about, ‘What if this person was in this situation? How would he have handled it? Well, we’ve seen this person do that, how would he have handled it?’

“The truth of the matter is I’m not trying to be that person, nor am I trying to be that person. I’ve said it since Day One: I am who I am. I know what I’m capable of, and I know where I’m going. I don’t have to conform to anybody else’s wants for me to do. I’m not that guy. If you want me to be this type of person I’m not that. And I’m happy to say that. This league is a great league with or without me. And I am my own person. I take pride in that and that’s pretty much how I feel.”

On if he has any regrets from how he handled the news conference after the game: “I really don’t. It happened. It happened. I didn’t want to talk to the media at the time and the truth of the matter is I still don’t really want to talk to the media, but at the end of the day, things have to happen. I’ve had a lot of time to go back and play everything back. I’m human. I’ve never once said that I was perfect. I never proclaimed that I was perfect. But at the end of the day, people pick and they do things of that sort, and the truth of the matter is, who are you to say that your way is right? That’s what I don’t understand.

We’ve got all these people who are condemning and saying, ‘Oh he should have done this, that and the third,’ but what makes your way right? I’ve been on record to say I’m a sore loser. Who likes to lose? You show me a good loser and I’m going to show you a loser. It’s not a popularity contest. I’m here to win football games, and for this organization, for Mr. Richardson, for my teammates and for what it’s worth my fans—they know what’s real. And I leave everything else on the field. I prepare the right way.

I have a mentality, I have a standard that I set for myself. And I’m not going to bend nor break. I never once offended anybody along that, but at the end of the day, we had an unbelievable season. A great season, at that. We did what a lot of people didn’t expect us to do. Hell, we did a lot of things that we were fast into doing. People knew we were going to win, but they didn’t know how fast we would win. At one point we were undefeated. The truth of the matter is we’ve got two losses. Some teams had two losses the first two weeks. That’s the truth of the matter. For me, nothing’s pretty much going to change. You get what you get.”

On the fumble in the fourth quarter where he appeared to avoid diving for it, and the Broncos recovered near the goal line to seal the game: “ OK, you say my effort. I didn’t dive down. I fumbled. That’s fine. But at the end of the day, we didn’t lose that game because of that fumble. I can tell you that. You can condemn and say, ‘He gave up, this that and the third,’ but hey, as long as my teammates know, as long as my coaches know, as long as anybody that’s following my team knows…I mean it’s easy for a person to nit-pick and say, ‘Cam this, he gave up’…that’s cool. That’s fine. I’m a grown man. I can understand that. But to say some things along the lines of that, and to say it in my face, that’s extremely different.”

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 2:27 PM with the headline "Cam Newton: No regrets on Super Bowl news conference."