As teammates throughout the locker room dressed for the plane ride home, Cam Newton simply sat.
Partially covering his face with a towel, it was obvious that for all the numbers that Newton amassed in his NFL debut, the only number that really mattered to him was the final score.
“Cam is very disappointed,” wide receiver Steve Smith said. “I’m encouraged by that.”
Newton crushed a pair of NFL yardage records involving quarterback debuts, racking up 422 yards through the air, but the Panthers still fell short in a 28-21 loss at the Arizona Cardinals.
“Like Coach says, when you’re just good enough, you’re just good enough to get beat,” Newton said. “We’ve just got to go back and get better.”
