About three weeks ago, Cam Newton was driving two blocks away from Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium when a violent collision with another car sent his black 1998 Dodge truck tumbling sideways across a bridge. The truck came to rest on the passenger’s side with its roof flattened.
The Carolina Panthers quarterback lifted himself out through the back window and staggered over to the side of the bridge, where he laid down and waited for an ambulance.
“I’m looking at this truck and thinking someone’s supposed to be dead,” Newton told the NFL’s website. “I’m on somebody’s fantasy team, and I think it’s the man upstairs.”
The car accident left him with two fractures in his lower back. That kind of injury does not typically result in structural damage but is rather a matter of pain tolerance.
Newton, 25, missed only one game. What is still more remarkable is that since the accident, he has looked even more like the dangerous, dual-threat quarterback that the NFL encountered in 2011, his rookie season.
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During his past three games, Newton completed 49 of his 77 pass attempts (63.6 per cent) for five touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed 30 times for 197 yards and three more touchdowns.
Newton is a running threat again, and that could pose big problems for Arizona and their defence on Sunday when the Cardinals (11-5) visit the Panthers (7-8-1) in an NFC wild-card play-off game.
“He doesn’t look like a guy who was in a car accident, that’s for sure,” Cardinals coach Bruce Arians told Fox Sports. “He’s a freaky athlete. To survive that wreck and come back and play, he had to be in unbelievable condition to do that.”
That was not the case earlier this year.
The 2014 season has been full of trials for Newton. He had surgery in March to tighten ankle ligaments, but the joint healed more slowly than he expected, which limited his running ability and still caused him pain two months into the season. He also suffered bruised ribs against the New England Patriots in the pre-season that further set back his rehabilitation.
Panthers coach Ron Rivera admitted that Newton’s mobility was not as good coming off the ankle and rib injuries, and that limited what the team could do on offence.
“I think it did to a degree,” Rivera said. “There are some things that we still called and still wanted to do, but always in the back of our mind, we had to be very wary of his situation and circumstances.”
With Newton closer to full health during their Week 12 bye, Carolina incorporated more read-option plays and quarterback runs to enhance the ground game while featuring play-action concepts on passing plays. The 1.96-metre, 111-kilogram Newton responded by rushing for 246 yards in his past four games.
That is bad news for a Cardinals defence that has allowed five of its past six opponents to rush for more than 100 yards. In Arizona’s past two games, the 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick and the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson – a pair of running quarterbacks – combined for 13 carries, 151 yards and a touchdown. Newton provides a similar challenge.
Returning from several injuries and a dangerous car accident are just a few of the obstacles Newton has overcome this year. Running past Arizona and advancing to the NFC Divisional play-offs is next on the list.
agray@thenational.ae
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