Cam Newton missed practice on Tuesday with a left foot issue. Could the Carolina Panthers be in serious trouble if Newton can’t play in Week 3?
The Carolina Panthers are 0-2. They are 1-9 in their last 10 games dating back to Nov. 8 of last year. With starting quarterback Cam Newton dealing with a lingering foot injury suffered in the preseason, what is Carolina to do going forward?
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Newton was not at practice on Tuesday with the Panthers. The Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue relayed Panthers general manager Marty Hurney’s message on Newton’s absence from practice Tuesday.
“Newton re-aggravated his same left foot on which he had a mid-foot sprain in the preseason. Team [knew] after the game he re-aggravated. No timeline. ‘We will see how it goes.’”
Carolina will have to travel across the country to play Kyler Murray, Kliff Kingsbury and the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday afternoon. If Newton is unable to go, look for head coach Ron Rivera to play Kyle Allen with rookie Will Grier out of West Virginia as his backup.
Allen was a rookie a year ago coming out of Houston, playing with Texas A&M before that. He played in two games for the 2018 Panthers. Allen started in Carolina’s Week 17 victory over the New Orleans Saints, completing 59.3 percent of his passes for 228 yards and two touchdowns in Carolina’s only win since Nov. 8 of last year.
Grier was drafted No. 100 overall in the third round of the 2019 NFL Draft. He put together a strong college career playing for Dana Holgorsen at West Virginia and briefly the Florida Gators before that. Grier is a Charlotte native, so he might get an opportunity to play in front of his hometown crowd if the Panthers season continues to fly off the rails.
Carolina is the only team in the NFC South without a win, as the Atlanta Falcons, the New Orleans Saints and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are all 1-1. Should Carolina fall to 0-3, one has to believe that huge changes are coming to the Panthers organization.
New owner David Tepper didn’t buy this team to see mediocre football. Newton might be a former NFL MVP and a Heisman Trophy winner, but he has looked like a shell of himself playing through injuries. Hurney and Rivera might be on the way out if Carolina continues to slide.
Let’s keep an eye on Newton for the rest of the week. It’s only Tuesday, so there is a chance Newton could play. He has been known to play through pain before. That being said, his timetable for return from this left foot injury is indeterminable at this point. Regardless, Carolina is not in a good spot right now and Newton is falling apart physically in his early 30s.