Cam Newton and Josh Norman of the Carolina Panthers got into a little scuffle during practice today after quarterback Newton tackled cornerback Norman who had intercepted his pass attempt.
According to coach Ron Rivera, the scuffle began after Norman gave Newton a stiff arm after the play was over.
“What happened was Cam got stiff-armed in the helmet, and that’s where that escalated. The big thing we have to understand is: ‘Hey, you’re going to get stiff-armed. You’ve just got to handle it,” stated Rivera.
The two had to be broken up by teammates and even after the scuffle was over, comments were heard coming from Newton towards Norman.
“Hit me like that again and you’ll know something,” Newton stated. Followed by “I bet you wont do that again.”
Supposedly Newton and Norman have been making sly comments towards each other for the past week but coach Rivera didn’t think that a scuffle like this would occur during practice. He stated that he expects some fights during this time of training camp and rightfully so. The players are all trying to earn their spots as starters.
However, Rivera wasn’t too pleased with his quarterback’s actions due to the fact that he could’ve easily gotten hurt.
Needless to say, I’m sure everyone is happy that this happened now instead of deeper into the season; including coach Rivera.
“The big thing about it is you’ve got to handle it, because it will happen in a game,” Rivera said. “You’ve got to learn when you get to this situation, you deal with it, you handle it, you cope with it and come back better than the next time.
Following practice, neither Norman nor Newton were able to talk to reporters but coach Rivera spent a noticeably longer time speaking to the team than usual as they huddled in the middle of the field.
Usually people view the quarterback as the head of the team, the captain, the one everyone looks up to and sometimes that makes them somewhat “big-headed” in the eyes of others.
Rivera said he hopes that players ultimately took from the incident that Newton is “like any of us.”
Hopefully this will be the first and last practice scuffle for the Panthers and they can continue on into a smooth a successful season.
ndmariso 