The Panthers had a plan on Thursday night for Cam Newton after the quarterback had worked his way back from an arthroscopic procedure in January on his right shoulder.
It was for him to throw.
And throw he did.
All told, Newton threw at least 40 times, beginning with calisthenics and stretches to loosen his shoulder before throwing a few yards in warmups, then longer during individuals and wherever he wanted once team drills began – essentially the quarterback was off the leash for most of the Panthers’ training camp kickoff in front of a crowd at Gibbs Stadium in Spartanburg, SC that exploded in cheers each time Newton threw more than ten yards downfield.
“We [had] him throwing with the guys and kind of starting [throwing] short to long,” said Quarterbacks Coach Scott Turner. “And then [in] team drills, whoever is open, he’s throwing them the ball.”
“There’s no limitations – he’s out here practicing just like any of our other guys.”
That was evident when Newton uncorked a 40-yard pass to Curtis Samuel, who had gotten behind James Bradberry – and became even more clear when he unloaded another deep ball to Chris Manhertz in traffic up the seam that the tight end hauled in with Eric Reid draped all over him.
Last year during training camp, deep balls were few and far between – especially accurate ones, so to complete two during the first practice session seems like a more important milestone than the breathless reporting of play-by-play without pads on that we tend to put a lot of weight on during July.
“Everything that we’ve been told, everything we’ve heard is that he’s been working very hard at it, so it was good to see,” said Ron Rivera after practice. “Everything we’d been told and, you know, everything that we saw really just pointed to him being ready to go.”
“It did a lot, not just for us, but it did a lot for him – just uncorking one like he did.”
Opens laptop.
Immediately sends to haters 😏 pic.twitter.com/30kabvcDlf
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) July 26, 2019
The plan is to see how Newton feels tomorrow morning and go from there, and from the way Turner spoke after practice, the team may give the 30-year old a “day off here or there” and all of this comes with a caveat that we’ll have to wait and see what happens when the defensive linemen can actually hit Newton. But for now, it’s obvious that Cam’s shoulder feels great.
Obvious to the fans watching, obvious to the coaches – and certainly obvious to his teammates.
“He looked really confident and just making throws that we know he can make,” said second-year corner Donte Jackson, who jokingly added that Cam was smart to only throw to his side twice. “He was talking like he normally talks, so I’m excited for him. He was telling us the way [he was going to go deep] and then he took a few shots.”
“He looked good.”
All according to plan.
