Super Bowl 50 just happened. The dab is everywhere. A 19-year-old sports writer tries to figure out what Cam Newton's legacy actually is — and whether the dance matters more than the football.
Most people will be asking themselves a few years down the road — who did Denver play in that Super Bowl?
Sure, you might not realize it now. But think about it. Who was the winner in Super Bowl 40? Drawing a blank? It was the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Seattle Seahawks. The point stands.
Super Bowl 50 will be remembered by three things. Von Miller's dominant performance. The fact that this was Peyton Manning's sendoff into the Hall of Fame. And the team that finally silenced the dab.
The Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 24 to 10. The Super Bowl wasn't super. So what are the stories you will actually remember from the 2015 season?
The missed field goal by the Vikings kicker in the playoffs? DeflateGate? Chip Kelly's catastrophic season in San Francisco? Tom Coughlin getting fired? Most likely none of it. The one thing that stuck was the dab, and who made it famous.
Every few years a quarterback creates a celebration that goes completely viral and takes on a life of its own. Tebowing with Tim Tebow. The discount double check with Aaron Rodgers. And now the dab with Cam Newton.
Touchdown celebrations are not new. They were popularized by the University of Miami program in the late 1980s and early 1990s — players who celebrated because they wanted to be remembered. Some took their helmets off so the fans could see their faces. It was personal. It was loud. And the NFL hated it.
The dab took that tradition to another level. Not just Cam celebrating. The whole team doing it together after every win. Politicians did it. Athletes from other sports did it. Grandmas did it. By January 2016 pretty much everyone in America knew what dabbing was.
Heroes come and go. Dance moves live forever.
Celebrating in the end zone is not a cultural statement. It is a personal one. The athlete creating something to be remembered by. Cam Newton figured that out and executed it on the biggest stage in American sports.
He is not the first person to understand this. He will not be the last.
The dab is gone now, or close enough. Something else will replace it next season. But Cam Newton will be attached to that moment in NFL history permanently. In 2035 someone is going to show their kid a video of a mass group dab in an NFL end zone and say that started with number one in Carolina.
There are worse ways to be remembered.