Last year during OTAs and training camp, it was all about ‘mental reps’ for Cam Newton. As he recovered from offseason shoulder surgery, the quotes all seemed to be about the same subject – how much energy Newton was bringing to the practice sessions; how just by being out there with his team, he was being a leader and helping to prepare for the season.
This year, with the 2015 MVP being able to take all the reps, both mental and physical, for all offseason activities, the tone is a lot different.
“It’s a huge difference to the start of our offseason program, that’s for sure,” said Greg Olsen, who said he also feels good, albeit one year older, after missing more than half of the 2017 season with a broken foot. “Having your quarterback out here full-go, full reps, is a huge difference from where it was last year. Especially now installing a new offense with some new little wrinkles and some new terminology and some new ways it’s being coached, all these reps are very valuable.”
“In this league, if you feel good, it makes a lot of things a lot easier. If you’re hurt and you’re struggling, it’s hard enough to play when you feel good.”
And Newton certainly appears to feel good, bringing his signature swag and sauce to each practice session, with a new twist this year: the player that controls the offense on the field looks as if he controls the music for stretching, plugging his iPhone into the speakers with an aux cord before each practice begins.
The importance of Newton being available to practice isn’t just to curate the playlist – he has been establishing rapport with multiple new weapons acquired this offseason, including first-round pick DJ Moore and free agent acquisitions Torrey Smith, CJ Anderson and Jarius Wright, a process Ron Rivera called both ‘critical’ and ‘crucial’; he’ll also need to get used to working with new offensive coordinator Norv Turner.
“They’re starting to get that feeling. The nice thing that I think that Cam gets is that Norv is here to help,” Rivera said about the 29 year old QB who will be working with the third offensive coordinator of his career. “They’re developing that rapport that I think is going to be very important.”
Rivera says the ability to practice may have made it easier on Newton from a mental perspective in addition to the physical.
“It takes a lot of pressure off of him in terms of not practicing; being right in the middle of it with everybody, being able to help set the tone and tempo for the team I think is really important. That’s what he’s doing right now.”
Cam & Pep‼️ pic.twitter.com/aiqCu02sUo
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) May 24, 2018
Wide receiver Damiere Byrd says that the team will be “months ahead compared to last season” in terms of preparation – and that’s even with the challenge of adjusting to a new offensive coordinator, although that challenge is somewhat alleviated by the similarities in the systems of Turner and former coordinator Mike Shula; Turner has said previously that the formations are 90% the same and the two systems share both verbiage and motion schemes.
“There’s always a little transition; he wants things done a certain way and that’s my job to kind of alter what I’ve done,” says Olsen. “He’s also very flexible with some things that we’ve done in the past, so he’s got a really sharp mind, a really open mind; like i said, he’s been great to work with – there are some things that I’ve done for a long time that are a little different than [how] he wants them done, certain routes, certain adjustments and whatnot, so that’s on me to adjust it to the way he wants his offense run.”
Perhaps the most important ingredient in a successful Panthers season will be a completely healthy Cam Newton; even with the addition of so many weapons, the offense isn’t equipped to lose the man who is under center and has accounted for the bulk of the offense since arriving in Carolina, especially when his backup is the untested Garrett Gilbert. While he has only missed four starts in seven years, Newton has played through a variety of injuries throughout his career, from back to head to last year’s shoulder surgery that not only kept him from participating in most training camp drills and only throwing two preseason passes, but saw him throwing for only 566 yards, two touchdowns and four interceptions the first three weeks of the season – the next two weeks saw him throw six touchdowns against one interception and 671 yards in road wins over Detroit and New England as his shoulder gained strength.
So Ron Rivera knows that the key to a fast start to the season lies in the health of #1, although he’s not willing to count his chickens before they hatch. Or something like that.
“I’m optimistic,” grinned Rivera after the OTA session in which his quarterback took all reps. “We won’t count our chickens, we’ll count our eggs.”
