Newton hid severity of foot injury from coaches before Week 2 game
Cam Newton detailed the extent of his foot injury in a video published to his YouTube channel Friday, admitting he concealed the severity of the ailment when questioned by members of the Carolina Panthers' coaching staff ahead of his team's Week 2 contest.
Speaking directly into the camera in a video titled, "The Truth About Why I'm Sidelined: In My Words and Done My Way," the 30-year-old quarterback explained how he handled what he called a mild Lisfranc injury.
"Coach came up to me and asked me, 'Are you alright, are you able to play?' ... and with that Superman title, tag, 'Nah coach, I'm good, let me play,'" Newton said. "But deep down inside, there's that voice that you're hearing, 'You're not as good as you think you are but you can keep on getting by,' and that's what I've been doing, I've been getting by."
Newton sustained the injury in the first preseason game of the year. He missed Week 3 with the ailment and has already been ruled out for Week 4 with no timetable for a return.
"I'm thinking in the back of my mind, 'It's preseason, there's no need to keep prolonging this scramble,' so as I was kind of diving forward, that plant step, I kind of felt it but didn't know the extent of the injury," he said. "When I got up, something don't feel right."
Newton spent the rest of that week rehabbing and undergoing therapy for the injury. He never considered missing time to heal after spending a long offseason recovering from multiple procedures on his throwing shoulder.
"This is where I got in my own way, because automatically I thought, 'I've got to play Week 1, I can't let my fans down. I want to be there for my team,'" he said. " ... Week 1, as I'm about to jog around, I realize I can't run. I can't. I tried to jog, I can't do that."
Newton didn't appear to be himself in the Panthers' Week 1 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. He threw one interception and ran the ball three times for minus-2 yards.
"I kept thinking to myself, 'I'm not able to play this game like I want to,'" Newton said, adding friends and family voiced concern about seeing him limping at certain points during the game.
He ended up playing in Week 2 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but the Panthers lost again as Newton failed to throw a touchdown pass for a second straight game and ran just twice for zero yards.
In the biggest play of the contest, the Panthers had fourth-and-goal from the Buccaneers' 2-yard line with just over a minute remaining in the fourth quarter. Newton didn't touch the ball on the deciding snap; Carolina opted for a direct snap to running back Christian McCaffrey but the play ended short of the goal line.
"From the fourth-down call ... people are saying, 'Why didn't Cam have the ball in his hands,' and I can honestly say, if we had to do a quarterback sneak or I had to do a quarterback run, I don't know, because I would have had to push off my foot," Newton said, adding it was difficult to plant or push off.
Newton was subsequently ruled out for Week 3 and has been on the shelf since.
Backup quarterback Kyle Allen led the Panthers to victory in Week 3, throwing four touchdown passes in a 38-20 win over the Arizona Cardinals. Newton said he'll continue to support his teammates as he bides his time for a return.
"If I'm able to get the time off for me to heal and get back to 100 percent, then I have no doubt in my mind everything that we want as a team can still be accomplished," he said.
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