As Cam Newton spoke to the media, dressed in simple team gear and exuding a surprisingly quiet demeanor, a change from the normally boisterous, brash and eminently confident quarterback we’re used to seeing, he continually repeated two phrases, peppering them throughout the 13 minute press conference held on the practice fields of Wofford College.
It’s a work in progress. It’s a process.
Apologies to Joel Embiid and Sam Hinkie, but that’s exactly what it’s been for Newton thus far, despite the breathless reports – this site included – of the quarterback’s return to the field, his ‘new’ mechanics, the return of the deep ball to his repertoire and other happenings in the daily life of the franchise quarterback of the Carolina Panthers. But now, five weeks away from the regular season and almost eight months removed from the arthroscopic procedure on his throwing shoulder, Newton is ready to continue that process to make himself the best quarterback he can be.
“It feels good, the transition has been good,” said Newton after practice Thursday, only the second time during training camp he hadn’t thrown during team drills and the first he didn’t throw at all. “It’s still a work in progress. Every NFL player can [attest] to this feeling right now. You can try to simulate what it’s going to be like in training camp, but until you’re out here, you’re hot, you’re frustrated, you’re away from your family [and] not only that, you may have a bad play [and] the frustrations of the coaches screaming down your neck, but you’ve still got to respond.”
“And you can’t mimic that in the offseason, no matter how many times you work out, no matter how many different drills you try to put yourself through. That’s where we’re at right now.”
That process – and progress – has seen Newton throw without limitations during five of seven training camp practice thus far, but this camp is different for multiple reasons. Not just because he’s without his defensive foil in Thomas Davis, not just because he’s facing off against a new defensive scheme full of new names, and not just because he’s trying to maintain a shoulder that needs to stay healthy not only for the entirety of 2019 but the rest of his career.
But because he’s started listening to his body.
“I’m at a point in my career now where I’m as hungry as ever, but I have to be as smart as ever,” said Newton, who turned 30 years old during the offseason. “As football players, our mantra is as macho men going down the field, never show signs of weakness [and] never show that you’re hurt and then you’re doing it, but you’re not necessarily making things better. We do hurt. We do have pain – pain for me is maybe different for me or for somebody else.”
“You’ve been hurt for so long that you don’t know what 100% feels like.”
So sometimes that means taking the day off from throwing even though you maybe were supposed to – perhaps not getting wide eyes for the deep ball when you can put the ball in the hands of playmakers like Christian McCaffrey, Curtis Samuel, or DJ Moore on a short route and let them run after catch, a sentiment that likely was the source of Newton telling Peter King he felt like he doesn’t need to be Superman anymore.
Sometimes it’s as simple as starting out small.
Instead of starting with three-pointers when you step onto the basketball court, start with a layup and work your way up to the jumpers over time.
It’s a process – but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t rested easier after uncorking his first deep ball of camp during the training camp kickoff and having it glide downfield 40ish yards and drop gently into the arms of Curtis Samuel just as he cut inside on a post route.
“I haven’t been trying to necessarily perfect those kind of things but those kind of come over time,” said Newton. “When you’ve got guys that we’ve got, you’ve just got to put it in the vicinity and that’s more exciting than anything – seeing how guys react to the ball in the air and making plays.”
Even that comes with a caveat though.
“It was a sigh of relief for a lot of people because I wasn’t right at the end of the season and it was even a sigh of relief for myself as well to be able to throw like that again. But like I said, it’s a process – I don’t want people to just assume Cam is back. I’m doing a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure that I’m able to practice and practice to the capabilities that I know that I can and this team expects me to.”
Ron Rivera knows what that’s like – he’s seen it enough times with players returning from injuries big and small – like when Thomas Davis had a preseason sack and came to the sidelines feeling like he had exorcised the ACL demons.
“That’s always the big thing for a guy coming off an injury or a surgery, they’re always wondering what’s going to happen when – same thing Daryl Williams is going through it now [and] Cam went through it on the first day of practice,” said Rivera. “Once you get past that thing that first tells you, then that’s great.”
“Once they get in some real action and they do it, they’ll know they’re back.”
The first step has been completed – the question now isn’t what the next step is, but how far can the process take the quarterback who is likely surrounded with the greatest talent he’s seen in his career, perhaps on defense as well as offense. When the progress bar fills up, what’s the output?
“We’re past due for South Carolina and North Carolina to have something to brag about,” said Newton. “We’re going to start by perfecting ourselves and perfecting things that we can control and we want this division back. That’s why we’re going as hard as we are.”
“Sometimes it’s easier than other times, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to keep moving forward.”
It’s a process.
