Whether you love him or hate him, you can’t deny the ability of Panthers cornerback Josh Norman. He’s set to become a free agent and make a boat load of money (or get franchised, but if you’re playing at all in the NFL, you’re making a boat load compared to my operations specialist job).
Sure, he talks a lot of trash, but guess what – it’s all a part of his plan to take receivers out of ball games. Look at what he did to OBJ – he was so far into his head that Beckham lost all self-control and reverted to caveman instincts such as ‘club’ and ‘grunt.’
It was the NFL equivalent of Ric Flair elbow dropping books, taking his pants off, and eventually giving himself a heart attack in the middle of the ring on live television. That’s how big of a meltdown it was.
For his part, he locked down Demaryius Thomas in the Super Bowl. I’ll give you that for the most part, the ‘NFL postseason’ as a looming entity seemed to lock down Thomas. Still, Norman owned him. It speaks volumes when the offense led by the second greatest quarterback of all time has this kind of respect for you:
Solid work, young steed.
Now, he’s saying things like “it’s hard to play two teams,” and people are dissecting this as if it’s some sort of cryptic Mayan cave painting (the Mayans were the cave painters, right?). People – are you in such desperate need of a story that you’re running with this as if it’s Game of Thrones and people are clamoring to find out if Jon Snow is dead or alive?
There’s no mystery in this – he was absolutely, positively, 5,000% talking about the officials – the same officials who call incompletions on balls that don’t even hit the ground, and hold their flags when corners are virtually setting up receivers for German suplexes.
But, what is he supposed to do when openly criticizing officials often comes with a stern look and unnecessary punishment at the hands Sir Lord Goodell the Mighty and “the Shield?” He has to veil his criticism.
That’s an entirely separate post’s worth of calling bullshit, though. If a ref blows it, each and every person watching has a right to tell him he sucks. If the blown call comes at the expense of your team, you’re actually obligated to make death threats on Twitter.
I totally get why people do that.
If you think there’s any mystery to this, you are unreasonably dramatic and idealistic. If he was talking about his own team being that second team, he would’ve come out and said it with no consequences. Players say stuff like that all the time – “we beat ourselves” or “it’s hard to win when we’re getting in our own way” come to mind. Norman could’ve said something like “we had to play the Broncos and ourselves tonight, and we blowed ass.”
That’s it – plain and simple….because logic.
I hated Norman before I became familiar with his work, and he really amped it up by saluting Manning after the game, crying on the field, and taking his lumps (unlike his quarterback) in the post-game press conference.
Dude’s an absolute warrior.
Put him in Titans blue – actually, no, he’s a system guy. Keep him away from the 3-4. So, yeah then, other than the fact that he wouldn’t fit the Titans system at all, maybe he’d be a good addition. I don’t know – this is why I’m a writer and not a coach/GM.
Stoney Keeley is the editor of the SoBros Network, Tennessee Titans Featured Analyst for Pro Football Spot, and covers the WWE for WrestlingNews.co. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley, @PFSpot, @WrestlingNewsCo
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