Cam Newton hasn’t been a Carolina Panther for 559 days. That, however, doesn’t necessarily mean the gratuitous disrespect towards the franchise’s greatest player has taken any of those days off.
During Sunday’s Week 4 coverage on NFL on Fox, Pittsburgh Steelers legend and Pro Football Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw laid down an, uh, interesting opinion. And by “interesting,” we mean borderline insane.
To be fair, we do love ourselves a nice comeback story. Plus, Sam Darnold is a likable guy, a respected teammate and is having himself an encouraging start in trying to turn his career around.
But, man . . . what is this?
“I think [the Panthers] have hit on the best quarterback in franchise history.”-Terry Bradshaw on Sam Darnold. #KeepPounding
— Jarrett Bailey (@JBaileyNFL) October 3, 2021
This, of course, is preposterous for a few reasons. For one, Darnold has played just a month’s worth of games for Carolina. Even though the franchise is relatively young, as they’re currently in their 27th season, that’s still some blatant disregard for a few guys that’ve lined up under center in a Panthers uniform. Jake Delhomme and Steve Beuerlein may like a word.
It’s particularly insulting, though, to the organization’s most impactful player in its history, Cam Newton. Now, providing a list of Newton’s accomplishments to even entertain such an argument would be ridiculous, superfluous and flippant in its own right.
But in case you forgot, Cam is the franchise leader in passing yards (by nearly 10,000 yards), passing touchdowns and completions. He’s also the only Panther to ever win the AP Most Valuable Player and the AP Offensive Player of the Year awards. Oh, and he’s led them to more wins, more division titles and more playoff appearances than any other quarterback in team history.
(Let’s not even mention, although we’re about to anyway, that he’s the only quarterback in league history to lead a franchise in career passing and rushing touchdowns.)
Anyway, perhaps Terry was just a little excited and got ahead of himself. We all want to see Sam succeed, but come on now, TB.
