I was rooting for Carolina to win Super Bowl 50. They had an excellent season, the team had never won on football's grandest stage, and Cam helped me win my Fantasy Football league two years ago. However, I think that footage of Newton actively leaping away from a scrum to recover a football that had been stripped from his hands will haunt him.

You could practically hear Newton thinking, "Jumping on piles is below my pay grade. The risk of personal injury is not worth the possibility of a turnover yards away from the end zone in a winnable football game that happens to be the biggest one of the year."

Isn't "Protect the Football" the golden rule of this sport?

I agree it will haunt him, the media will probably eat it up and dissect it. from one angle it did look like how u described it, but from another angle it looked like he might have been repositioning in case the ball squirted out of the pile.

He didn't want any part of that pile while it resulted in a recovery in Carolinas 4 yard line. Can't really blame him since he hasn't seen a defense on him this hard all season. GO BRONCOS!!!

EDIT
Cam, lose the Superman moniker. We all know that's Shaqs.

This might be a stretch, but my first thought when I watched that play live was that he was hoping his lineman would be able to bat the ball back to him, and he was trying to extend the play by staying on his feet where he could still pass or run the ball.

Not a Newton fan, but I thought his hesitance was much more defendable than most are saying.

OK..... Get Back Jack... I mean Cam..... there's no defense. He just makes a conscious decision to NOT go after the ball. Decision, not instinct.

No defending it. I don't care about the post-game conference or him sulking or whatever. That doesn't matter. His actions on the field in the Super Bowl, with his team still one play away from getting the lead, possibly the win.

Cam needs to mature in all sorts of manners. Superman, he is not.