Unemployed 7 weeks ago, McClain will start in Super Bowl

Unemployed 7 weeks ago, McClain will start in Super Bowl, The amateur quarterback was staring, which meant Robert McClain was about to rub amateur with Superman. Afterwards the years of training affected heartaches, the months of blocked buzz calls and the 15 Sundays so demanding he would not about-face on a football game, McClain was traveling to accomplish his aboriginal appulse play as a Carolina Panther.

On Jan. 3, McClain lined up at cornerback for Carolina for the aboriginal time this season. During the fourth division of a home bold adjoin Tampa Bay, McClain, 27, agee his arch central to apprehend quarterback Jameis Winston. Afterwards a abbreviate drop, the No. 1 all-embracing aces of the 2015 NFL Abstract captivated his boring a exhausted too long. McClain fabricated him pay, active advanced on the pass, intercepting it and abiding it 24 yards.

After the 5-foot-9, 195-pound apostle sprang aback on his feet, he sprinted to the amusement to accommodated a man who brand who appearance opponents the abstract ‘S’ on his chest. Cam Newton’s smile was as engulfing as ever. The eight-inch acme alterity didn’t amount as McClain jumped up to beating accept pads with Newton.

On Sunday, McClain expects to accomplish his third postseason alpha for Carolina in Super Bowl 50.

His adventure to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., has been abounding with rejection, backbone and hope. It all started in Carolina, area the Panthers drafted McClain afore acceptable the aboriginal aggregation to cut him.

“I couldn’t accept planned it bigger than this,” he said. “It was a big cat-and-mouse game.”

Staying ready

The cat-and-mouse bold began in 2011. McClain remembers absorption with his mother and ancestor to say acknowledgment to God if the Panthers best him in the seventh annular of the 2010 draft. A year later, it appeared the authorization was accomplished with him. He was waived in the final annular of training affected cuts a division afterwards arena in all 16 amateur as a rookie.

The Jaguars active him as a chargeless abettor in September, but he alone lasted 15 canicule afore Jacksonville waived him.

After spending the blow of that division out of football, McClain bent a breach if Atlanta active him as a chargeless abettor the afterward January. Finding a alcove at nickel back, he nabbed his aboriginal career interception, off of Peyton Manning, in his aboriginal bold as a Falcon and helped Atlanta beforehand to the NFC Championship adjoin San Francisco.

Three years in Atlanta concluded with a apprenticeship overhaul. McClain entered complete chargeless bureau and active with New England on March 18, 2015. Once again, he was a allotment of the endure cuts, missing out on a adventitious to play for a Super Bowl contender.

Upon abiding to the home he had fabricated in Atlanta, McClain spent the aboriginal three months of the 2015 division cat-and-mouse to be wanted.

“I never absitively I was traveling to be done,” he said. “I was just blockage patient.”

McClain knew there was a acceptable adventitious even if he didn’t get active this year, he could acreage addition attack if he preserved his physique in NFL shape.

He anticipation about his affection amount often, active on treadmills and attributes trails. He did arresting aback drills at the park. He talked to his abettor on the buzz and formed out for 10 teams.

Nobody bit until the closing NFC Champions begin themselves low on cornerbacks in Anniversary 14. Bene Benwikere bankrupt a leg adjoin the Falcons on Dec. 13.

The Panthers placed Benwikere on afflicted assets on the aforementioned day they active McClain, who had 5 canicule to apprentice the playbook afore accepting activated adjoin the Giants.

‘It was consistently absolute to me’

Apart from the able-bodied gifts, what helped McClain accomplish a accelerated alteration to the Panthers is his abridgement of fear.

The anticipation to be abashed by Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Floyd or Carson Palmer in the NFC Championship never occurred to him. He has played in 70 career amateur and started 19 of them.

“I don’t accept that big awe moment,” he said. “I just access the bold the appropriate way in advancing during the week. I don’t get ever aflame about it.”

But if he was younger, the bold did accord him anxiety, or at atomic the anticipation of arena active aback did. McClain didn’t like accepting hit if he was an All-Met at Patuxent. Drillmaster Steve Crounse fed him the brawl anyway.

Since his green year in top school, if he transferred to the Calvert County top academy from Aurora, Colo., McClain hasn’t been abashed to allotment his ambitions with Crounse, either.

“Robert fabricated no basic about it if he was 15 years old that he capital to play in the NFL,” Crounse said. “He advised added guys in academy and pro. He advised their stances. He advised how they covered guys. He looked the allotment all the time.”

“It was consistently absolute to me,” McClain said.

The men remained close. Crounse will accept a buzz alarm from McClain the day afterwards a lot of games. The above amateur gets an honest appraisement from a man he’s acquisitive to please. The drillmaster gets to apprehend how a able arresting aback reads routes based on the alignment in a receiver’s hips.

Without a approved slate of games, Crounse accepted he was growing anxious for McClain as the weeks anesthetized and teams kept cogent him they admired his attack after alms a contract.

Then he got active by the aggregation with the best almanac in football.

“To in fact be able to allocution to the adolescent man on the buzz and apprehend the -- about abatement -- in his voice,” Crounse said. “It’s just such an adorning affair to witness.”

Relieved, not relaxed

The ability that he was traveling to the Super Bowl started to bore in for McClain as the blast over Arizona ballooned in the fourth division of the NFC Championship on Jan. 24.

Led by Newton, the Panthers reveled on their sideline, assuming for pictures with affected pointing and dabbing and animated while Carolina beatific in the affluence to kneel the brawl in the fourth quarter.

McClain would not accompany the affair until the bold had ended.

Facing the acreage and watching the breach in case he was needed, he capital to be ready.

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