Rodney Harrison On How He'd Stop Cam Newton: "Hurt Him...Go Right At His Knees" 

Here’s former safety Rodney Harrison on the Dan Patrick Show yesterday, discussing what Denver could do to mitigate Cam Newton. He doesn’t quite offer advice to the Broncos, but he does know what his teams would have done: tried to injure Newton to get him out of the game.

“If I was playing against Cam Newton, I would try to take him out. I would try to take him out. [Dan Patrick: What do you mean?] I would try to hurt him. I would go right at his knees. That’s the goal. That’s the goal: you want to knock him out. That might be the difference between winning and losing the Super Bowl.”

So, he’s not wrong. I like Denver’s chances with Derek Anderson running the Panthers offense. But that’s not how football is (supposed to be) played anymore. It’s a fair point by Harrison that up until the NFL’s offensive explosion—say the turn of the century, and hanging on until the Saints’ bounty scandal—roughing up and actively injuring opponents to hinder them or put them on the sideline was a valid defensive strategy, if not a public one.

It’s good those days are mostly over, and not just for player safety. No one is watching this game to see either quarterback not play.

Which is why Bill Romanowski sucks and has always sucked. Here’s one of the dirtiest men ever to play football discussing what he’d do to Newton.

The other two guys are laughing, like it’s a joke, but Romanowski isn’t, like maybe it’s not? Stay safe, Cam.