The Carolina Panthers the year before they picked Cam Newton with the first overall selection in the 2011 NFL Draft were not a very good football team. They went 2-14 under John Fox and fielded one of the worst offenses you’ll see with Jimmy Clausen at the helm. Hence the No. 1 pick!
Newton, who has been all over the place in the media lately, appeared on Travis Hunter’s podcast this past week and talked about Hunter possibly going first overall and how difficult it would be for someone who isn’t a quarterback to impact the game.
“You’re the top pick because that was the worst team in the NFL the year before. For me I wanted to be the No. 1 pick. You could potentially be the first pick, but, bro, you have no way of impacting the game the way a quarterback does,” Newton said. “You can lock down the No. 1 receiver. You can make impact plays on offense all you want but it’s still not like a quarterback.”
And then he talked about the Panthers and said the team was a “locker room of losers.”
“My issue was when I was the first pick, I went into a locker room of losers. Guys didn’t know how to win, guys didn’t know how to prepare, it was a culture shock for me,” Newton continued. “The games don’t mean a lot to a lot of people in the league like you would expect. It’s just money. Not everybody has the ability to be impact players, they’re just players.”
And it’s that last part that is NOT sitting well with Steve Smith, former Panthers wide receiver and a member of both the 2010 and 2011 teams (a.k.a. before and after Cam arrived).
Smith quote tweeted the clip of Newton talking and made his displeasure with the suggestion that Newton was the only winner on the roster or in the locker room quite clear.
Smitty also got into the weeds of the menchies a little bit, responding to someone who quote tweeted him suggesting there is “family drama” by pointing out that there’s “no family drama, just drama” which pretty clearly implies that he and Newton are not currently what one would call “family.”
The Hall of Fame finalist then fired off one more missive noting that he’s “disappointed” with the way Newton has spoken about the Panthers recently but that he wishes him the best moving forward.
So, yeah, suffice to say Smith isn’t thrilled at what Newton had to say in the clip. Now, it was pretty heavily edited, so there’s a chance maybe this stuff is somewhat out of context, but it’s pretty hard to miss the “locker room of losers” comment as anything other than what it’s meant to be.
And I would argue the opposite: Smith was there as well as DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart along with veteran defenders like Jon Beason and Thomas Davis. The Panthers had won plenty before Newton got there, although with just one playoff appearance in the last five years or so, they weren’t exactly dominating on a regular basis.
Hence Fox getting fired, Ron Rivera being hired and the Panthers sitting there with the first-overall pick, which they used on Newton. The former Auburn quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner certainly improved the Panthers, but it was also adding guys like Greg Olsen that year (via trade) and Luke Kuechly (their subsequent first-round pick) that helped launch them into a Super Bowl team in 2015.
Newton’s run with the Panthers was special, and he’s on the team’s Mt. Rushmore of players. But so is Smith, and throwing everyone else from that team under the bus is a pretty bad look for Newton.
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