Cam Newton’s “I’m back” moment on Sunday looked pretty simple on its face. The Panthers first took possession at the Cardinals’ 15 just 1:26 into the game, after a Haason Reddick strip-sack. On their fifth offensive snap, in went the new/old Carolina quarterback.
And in with Newton went Panthers coordinator Joe Brady’s play call—quarterback power, a run call that Newton’s executed hundreds of times. Newton took the snap, ran toward the line behind his fullback, then, lacking space there, bounced the play out to his right, and raced past the Arizona defense to the pylon to give Carolina a 7–0 lead. Three minutes later, a Newton touchdown pass to Robby Anderson would make it 14–0, and the Panthers were well on their way to a 34–10 road rout of a team that came in with the NFL’s best record.
So really cool, interesting reunion story, and that’s the end of it, right?
Not quite.
As Panthers coach Matt Rhule and I talked Thursday about where his team, and program, are, the play came up repeatedly. And Rhule hit on it most pointedly right when discussion turned to his April fishing trip with two-time Super Bowl–winning coach Jimmy Johnson
There were two big lessons Rhule said he took from the time he and his kid spent out in the Gulf of Mexico with the Cowboys legend. The first showed up in the simple act of getting Newton in the first place and doing it in November. “We talked about being willing, when you’re not a winning team yet, whether it’s trading, trading back, bringing in new players, just to do whatever it takes to bring in the players,” Rhule explained. “So that’s been my mentality; it’s been [GM] Scott [Fitterer’s] mentality.”
The second lesson was reflected in the Panthers’ going to Newton without fear on his first snap since preseason, then showing even more faith in him minutes later.
“Jimmy talking about finding a way to change momentum and win every game—” Rhule said. “It challenges me every week, . So it’s putting Cam out there and letting him run the quarterback power, knowing that if he scored, our entire team would be uplifted. And when he did and did again it was pretty special.”
“It takes guts for Joe Brady to call that sprint out with Cam never having seen him throw a pass—Joe Brady calling sprint out on the goal line on first down, he’d never seen Cam Newton put on a pair of shoulder pads and throw a pass. He hadn’t been in pads for us yet.”
Rhule’s now 26 games in as Carolina’s head coach. The Panthers were 5–11 last year and are 5–5 this year with seven games to go. No one’s arrived yet.
But signs that things are turning in Carolina are there if you look close enough. And while the dramatics of Newton’s effort as part of a huge win were always going to be the story coming out of that Week 10 game, how, why and even that it all went down this way can give you a pretty clear roadmap for where Rhule’s taking the Panthers in Year 2.
