Former Chants Norman, Tolbert reflect on Super Bowl 50 loss

Josh Norman was the last Carolina Panthers player to appear for postgame interviews Sunday night, arriving into the media room after most of his teammates had already cleared out and headed for the team bus.

He took his seat at his designated podium but let the first question hang awkwardly in the air for 25 seconds, rubbing his hand over his face, clenching his lips and arching his back with a deep breath before finally mustering a response.

“Man, first and foremost I want to give thanks to God for allowing us to get this far. It’s hard to give thanks even in the midst of this trying time, but you have to,” he said. “You have to, because we wouldn’t have got here without Him and His grace that blessed us to get here. [I’m] just so fortunate and blessed to be here, even in this trying time right now. I’m not going to lie and say this is not still hurting because it does. It’s going to be [there] for a while, but I know I’ll be back in this game.”

The Panthers lost Super Bowl 50 to the Denver Broncos, 24-10, on Sunday, but the defense – and Norman in particular – did its part.

While he hasn’t traditionally shadowed specific receivers during the season, the star cornerback and former Coastal Carolina standout followed Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas just about everywhere he went and Thomas finished the night with just one catch for eight yards on six targets.

Norman, who was named a first-team All-Pro this season for the first time in his four-year NFL career, is headed to free agency and only further boosted his market value with his suffocating coverage Sunday night.

But in the aftermath of the Super Bowl loss, of the end of the Panthers’ special season, Norman was still struggling to process what had just happened.

“I’m having a hard time sitting here, I really am,” he said. “I’m going to be straight up and honest, I really didn’t even want to talk to you guys.”

Norman nearly intercepted quarterback Peyton Manning on the Broncos’ fourth drive of the game, instead settling for one of his two pass break-ups of the evening.

The lone blemish for him, meanwhile, came late in the fourth quarter on a defensive holding penalty as Manning threw incomplete to Thomas on third-and-goal from the 4 before the Broncos were able to score a touchdown and two-point conversion on the next play to go up 24-10 with 3:08 remaining. That scoring drive was set up when Panthers quarterback Cam Newton fumbled to give Denver a short field at the Carolina 4.

After the game, Norman kept saying how it was “tough playing two teams,” though he wouldn’t clarify what he meant. The officials? The Panthers’ own offensive failures?

“Denver did what they needed to do to win today. They really did,” he said. “Their defense played spectacular. Their offense played good enough and they played spectacular and their special teams played spectacular. In all three phases they won the game, and it’s so gut-wrenching and hard to swallow that pill. There [were] chances and opportunities there and we just didn’t capitalize on them. It’s so hard to play one team and then play the other, it really is.”

Asked if he was talking about the offense and defense, Norman just said, “It’s crazy” and later reiterated his “it’s just hard playing two teams” point another time.

Before he left the field Sunday night, Norman walked up to Manning to pay his respects to the legendary quarterback.

“He’s one of the GOATS, man. He’ll go down as one of the best that [has] ever done it. I’m just happy to be in the game with him, go up against him. It’s probably his last hurrah,” Norman said later. “We were trying to spoil it so bad and we just came up on the [wrong] end of the stick. Much respects to him in his future endeavors and whatever he has going on with him.”

Norman was one of two former Coastal Carolina standouts playing significant roles in the Panthers’ run to a 15-1 regular-season record and the second Super Bowl appearance in franchise history.

Fullback Mike Tolbert, the other former Chanticleer, had a rougher evening Sunday while fumbling twice and losing one of them for a costly turnover in the second quarter. With the Panthers down six points and driving, he had just carried the ball 11 yards across midfield when Denver Broncos safety and former South Carolina Gamecock Darian Stewart jarred the ball free for Tolbert’s first lost fumble since 2011.

“They’re a great defense, so I’m going to give credit to them,” Tolbert said. “But us as an offense, we can’t do things. We can’t turn the ball over. We can’t give up sacks. We can’t fumble. We can’t kill ourselves with penalties. That’s the thing, that’s the story of our offense tonight. And unfortunately, we picked the worst time to do it.”

Like Norman, Tolbert is also headed for free agency. In the wake of the Super Bowl defeat Sunday night, though, both players talked about the Panthers’ future.

“It has been a tremendous season,” Tolbert said. “I’m proud and honored to be a part of this team. It didn’t go our way in the final game, but we’re going to get back to the drawing board this offseason and try to get [back] here. You’ve got to understand the team that just beat us was in this very position a couple years ago.”

Said Norman: “Keep pounding. Through everything, through this difficult loss, we’ll keep pounding. It will just make us stronger for next year and the years after that and just continue to push through everything and these obstacles, because this one [is] going to set in for quite some time.”

This story was originally published February 8, 2016 at 1:23 PM with the headline "Former Chants Norman, Tolbert reflect on Super Bowl 50 loss."