SAN FRANCISCO — Warren Moon has ratcheted up the rhetoric in defense of Cam Newton.
Moon, who has mentored the Panthers star since Newton’s college days, claimed in a recent interview with Fox Sports that unspecified critics are talking as if Newton “raped like five pastors’ daughters over the last five years and … is getting away with it.”
It was a stunning accusation from Moon, a Hall of Fame quarterback who is now part of the Seahawks’ radio broadcast team, and one that no doubt assures the controversy over Newton’s personality will continue to be a raging topic here during the run-up to Super Bowl 50 on Sunday.
“That’s the thing I don’t understand — how come they just can’t let it go?” Moon told Fox Sports last week for a story published Monday. “If he hasn’t done anything [recently] that’s been against the law or anything that would cause negative publicity, isn’t out in the world doing something wrong except for just dancing after a touchdown, I mean what is the big deal?”
Moon apparently also was referring to Newton being kicked out of the University of Florida for stealing a laptop and having his father accused of taking payoffs while he was at Auburn as parts of Newton’s history that those unnamed critics won’t let die.
“He’s worked toward maturity in the last five or six years he’s been in the league and has done positive things to erase a lot of that negative stuff from when he was 18, 19 years old,” Moon said. “I just don’t know why people can’t let all of that stuff go.
“You’d think he raped like five pastors’ daughters over the last five years and he’s getting away with it the way people are talking about him.”
Newton, who will lead the Panthers into the Super Bowl on Sunday against Peyton Manning and the Broncos, supercharged the discussion last week by saying he thinks his race is fueling it.
“I’m an African-American quarterback, [and] that might scare some people because my skill set isn’t like anybody else,” Newton said last week.
Newton tried to defuse the controversy that erupted from those comments in an interview Sunday with ESPN.
“It took on a wave that I kind of expected, but didn’t want it to reach that magnitude, but it did,” Newton told the network.
“I said that I’m not a person that can necessarily be labeled because when I was coming out, I was labeled to guys that no longer are in this league,” Newton added. “And I didn’t mean it to come off as a race thing. I didn’t mean it to come off as anybody that’s being brash or flamboyant about a specific question.
“I was just saying facts. I’m hoping to be a trailblazer, to give an avenue not only for African-American quarterbacks but athletic quarterbacks as well. You can be Caucasian, you can have any type of ethnicity outside of African-American, and that’s what I was trying to preach.”