Cam Newton's Record Day Not Enough As Panthers Come Up Short 28-21 Vs Cardinals

Cam Newton was spectacular in his long-awaited NFL debut, but came up one yard short as the Carolina Panthers lost 28-21 to the Arizona Cardinals in their season opener. Newton established a new rookie passing record with 422 yards, threw a pair of touchdown passes to Steve Smith and ran for another but couldn’t punch it into the end zone on a last-minute drive. Ultimately the Panthers were undone in on an 89-yard punt return by a guy they considered taking with the No. 1 overall pick. The Cardinals trailed by seven going into the fourth quarter but Kevin Kolb hit Early Doucet with a 70-yard touchdown strike and then Patrick Peterson, Arizona’s first pick in the draft, came up with the game-breaker when he returned a Jason Baker punt 89 yards for a touchdown to give Arizona the lead with 7:15 left in the game. Newton completed 24 of 37 yards, shattering the record for most yards by a rookie quarterback.

Source: Gaston Gazette

 

I've seen a bunch of people complaining about Cam being a "choker", but ya gotta give him a break. He put up Tom Brady numbers in his regular season debut. He'll learn to be better, in the clutch

 

Well, I'll eat my words. I figured he'd throw for 200 yards less and a couple more picks. Great showing by Cam.

 

It was against a terrible defense.

 

I'm still shocked...

 

He'll come back down to earth against Green Bay next week.......Clay will eat him alive.

But whoever was forced to start Cam in fantasy really reaped the benefits.

 

Yea it's all downhill from here. Probably the best game he'll ever have as a pro.

 

Terrible defense? Yeah. But he's a rookie who had less time to prepare because of the lockout. A terrible NFL defense is still a lot better then defenses he was used to. I'm still not ready to jump on the bandwagon but I will definitely not tarnish the kid's first pro debut, which was extraordinary to say the least.

 

It could have been against the worst defense in the league, 400 yards with 3 combined TDs for a rookie making his first start is quite impressive.

 

This.

I don't see many people throwing for 422 yards as a rookie, period. I watched the whole game and to me he looked solid and efficient. He's still raw but this shows that he can play, he was putting passes ON THE MONEY, especially that first play down at the goal line, he put it in his RBs hands and he dropped it. On another play that same series Lafell tripped, Newton had an excellent debut.

He's only going to grow from here, no one's expecting 400 yards every week, but to show that he can make a 2-14 team look this good.

Not to mention he's given Steve Smith a spark we haven't seen from him in a while. Carolina isn't going anywhere this season but they're going to annoy people and pull a few upsets.

 

Amazing performance.

KOLB WON!!!

 

Cam looked pretty good yesterday but again its only week 1. If he can put these numbers up week after week then he can become an elite quarterback ini this league.

 

Give the guy props, he silenced some critics. He made some great plays.

 

You take away Steve Smith and he had an average game. Smith played out of his mind. I won't take it away from Newton, he did have a great game, but people are putting most if not all of this on him, and that is far from the truth.

 

In Newton's defense, you could say the same about a lot of WRs and the more elite QBs in the history of the game...

 

Exactly Ward, it's a team game. When the best actually want to play(Smith) then it makes everyone else want to play.

 

the NFC South just got even more interesting

 

How did the ball get to Smith? Magic?

Come on, dude. I'm an admitted Newton hater but I'm not gonna steal his props. That's like trying to take away Joe Montana's best game because he was throwing to Jerry Rice. QB still has to find a way to get the ball there.

If you want to give credit to someone else, it needs to be put on the awfulness of the opposing team's defense.