It came in a losing effort, but no Week?1 performance in the NFL was more spectacular than Cam Newton’s debut for the Carolina Panthers. No, his team probably isn’t making the playoffs. And it was just one game. But Newton completed 24 of 37 passes for 422 yards and two touchdowns against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. And that goes a long way toward convincing the Panthers they have a player capable of living up to his enormous hype. “This is what they said he couldn’t do: throw from the pocket,” NBC football analyst Tony Dungy said before his network’s Sunday night telecast of the New York Jets-Dallas Cowboys game. “He was right on target all game. … This is something special. Rookie quarterbacks don’t come in and do this. They don’t do it on the road their first game with no offseason program. Cam Newton was tremendous.”
Strong words. But again, Newton’s team still lost. Can he find a way to put up numbers throughout this season and translate that into actual results? That will be tough given Carolina’s relative lack of talent on both sides of the ball and a tough NFC South with New Orleans, Atlanta and Tampa Bay.
“They say there are no moral victories. This was a big [moral] win for Carolina,” Dungy said. “They’ve got a quarterback who can do it for them. … There were a lot of questions about Cam Newton. Could he do it? Was he worthy of that No. 1 pick? He threw for 400 yards [Sunday]. I coached against John Elway in his first game on the road. He completed one pass. Cam Newton was a big winner today.”
– Brian McNally
