Ron Rivera said yesterday following the Carolina Panthers OTA session that he felt as if the backup to Cam Newton was on the roster and a tweet sent by former Panthers backup Derek Anderson seems to have confirmed that Anderson, who will turn 35 in a couple of weeks, has finished his time in Carolina.
“I appreciated my time with the @Panthers more than any of you know,” Anderson said in a tweet late Wednesday morning. “Charlotte is where our family started and grew to 5! So much love! I came to you guys when I needed you more than you needed me. Nothing but love for all my teammates and coaches that made me a better person!”
Anderson, who has been with the team since 2011, has only thrown 168 pass attempts and started four games in his seven years acting as Newton’s backup – the 2005 sixth-round pick spent the first four years of his career in Cleveland, making the Pro Bowl in 2007; he spent a year in Arizona before signing with Carolina the same year that Newton was drafted first overall.
Competing to be #2 on the roster will be 26 year old Garrett Gilbert, who Rivera called the “leader in the clubhouse” earlier this month after rookie mini-camps, former Houston Texan Taylor Heinicke, who is the only QB on the roster to have played a regular season game in the NFL, and undrafted free agent Kyle Allen, who began his college career as Johnny Manziel’s backup at Texas A&M before transferring to the University of Houston; Gilbert has never taken a snap and Heinicke has only a single pass attempt, which he completed.
However, Rivera is confident that the quarterbacks on the roster will be able to fill in if needed.
“I think so. We’ve got some guys that have the kind of skill set we’re looking for,” Rivera said when asked if he felt as if one of the quarterbacks on the roster would end up as the backup to Cam Newton. “They’re both smart guys with good arms, [they] make good decisions – which we saw today. They’ll continue to compete against one another.”
Can’t forget all of the great @panther fans as well and the many great memories our family will carry with us forever..#nfcchamps#sb50#mnf#tds#181
— Derek Anderson (@DAnderson314) May 30, 2018
