When Cam Newton had shoulder surgery in March of 2017, he was expected to be back to throwing by the start of the training camp – that was quickly derailed and Newton hardly threw during training camp or the preseason.

Then, more than a year removed from the surgery, he was expected to enter the 2018 season fully healthy, and even though it appeared he was still having issues connecting on the deep ball – long passes in training camp and the preseason consistently sailed awry and even into the regular season, Newton’s longest completed pass traveled only 40.5 yards in the air, the third-fewest among qualifying quarterbacks this season.

As the year wore on, Newton’s lingering shoulder soreness, which was originally chalked up to throwing 22 times during the three-score fourth quarter comeback in Philadelphia, kept him from throwing on Wednesdays and Thursdays in practice from Week 8 on; the lingering effects of surgery from 18 months prior surprised even Newton, but he put on a brave face as he battled throughout the season.

“I’m pretty oblivious to the recovery time and I would not have expected me to still have things that are lingering from that, but at the end of the day it is what it is,” said the quarterback two weeks ago. “It’s about managing pain and understanding that you have a job to do, a responsibility to put your best product out there on the field and I want to do that for not only myself, but for this team.”

But as the shoulder soreness grew too much – Newton looked like a shell of himself on Monday Night Football in a 12-9 loss to the Saints in which Newton threw for a season-low 55.1% and 131 yards and didn’t attempt a pass longer than 17 yards; Jarius Wright said that multiple defensive backs told him that they weren’t scared of the Panthers going deep – the decision was ultimately made by Rivera, general manager Marty Hurney and Cam Newton’s camp that a healthy Taylor Heinicke was a better option.

Oh, and new owner David Tepper had his say, as well.

“I don’t want to speak to what Mr. Tepper said other than the fact that he’s supportive of our decision,” said Rivera.

The news had already broken, but multiple teammates in the locker room weighed in on their franchise quarterback finally succumbing to the shoulder injury that had seemingly held him back for the past seven weeks.

All of them expressed gratitude and high praise for Newton gutting through the injury for as long as he did.

“The tough part is when everybody doesn’t know the full spectrum of things that are going on. It’s a tough game,” said Trai Turner. “You have a lot of guys going out there and battling… Cam gives us his best no matter what is going on. I couldn’t be more proud of him and in a sense I’m happy that he’s able to get himself together now.”

“It’s frustrating because – and I know this about Cam as well – you do everything you possibly can to try to get it right, try to get it better and unfortunately, the sport we play is such a physically demanding sport that it’s not – there’s different levels of hurt and injury and sometimes no matter how much you want something to feel better or how much you push through something, if your mechanics can’t work, then it doesn’t work,” said Ryan Kalil. “For guys who have played a long time, sometimes you can put yourself in a worse situation or your teammates in a worse situation. For me, it wasn’t a matter of toughing it out, it was things weren’t working – having your arm and neck right are things you need, especially to play center.”

To play quarterback, too.

Christian McCaffrey spoke the most about Newton, about not only what Newton brings to his team, but what he brought to McCaffrey, a player who sometimes can take things too seriously, someone who may have forgotten exactly why he started playing football in the first place.

“He’s put the fun in it for me. I’m a guy that can very uptight about everything, very focused and sometimes I can let that get in the way,” said McCaffrey, who has already set the franchise record for most yards from scrimmage. “When I first came here, Cam was the first one I saw that really had fun with it; it kind of brought to my attention that I should probably have more fun with it as well. He’s brought me back to the game that I fell in love with when I was seven – having fun with my friends playing football and that’s really all it is.”

“Everybody knows that he’s been struggling with some stuff and I hate to see all the negative stuff going his way, because if people really knew what he was going through I think they would bite their tongue a little bit.”

“He’s been unbelievable all year – he gets a lot of flak for sure, but to know what he’s been playing through has been pretty impressive. I don’t know too many guys that would do that and continue to take hits the way he does, continue to run the ball with the tenacity he does and continue to fight back. So for us, you can definitely get behind that.”

“He’s a warrior and we’ll miss him.”

 

Josh Klein on Twitter
Josh Klein
Editor-In-Chief at The Riot Report
Josh Klein is Editor-In-Chief of The Riot Report. His favorite Panther of all time is Chad Cota and he once AIM chatted with Kevin Greene. Follow Josh on Twitter @joshkleinrules.