Cam Newton Q&A: Looking to Instill a Fighting Attitude in the Panthers

Cam Newton has led the Panthers to back-to-back division titles, won his first playoff game in January and has proved in four seasons in the NFL that he has immense talent, in and out of the pocket. 

But he has loftier goals than what he's accomplished so far, especially when it comes to winning.

Newton enters this season with a fighting attitude—but maybe you've already noticed that, considering the waves he made by getting into a scuffle with teammate Josh Norman after Norman intercepted him at training camp. He also enters with a new contract and is healthy after an ankle injury slowed him last year.

Newton spoke to Bleacher Report recently about his expectations for this season—and about how his previous experience, on and off the field, has prepared him for this point.

Bleacher Report: In hindsight, did the ankle injury you dealt with last season help you progress as a pocket passer? And therefore, was it in some way a good thing?

Cam Newton: It was extremely painful, but in looking back at it, I wouldn't change anything that happened. Everything that has happened up to this point has manifested itself in making me the quarterback that I am today. Yes, it did make me become more patient if you look at it from a pocket standpoint. But more than that, it helped me understand my outlets rather than me always being the outlet to run. I had to know, Hey, check it down to the running back, check it down to the tight end, check it down to these guys who are available and open and capable of making plays as well.

B/R: The reason I ask is there are a lot of people who do advanced analytics on the game and say that you were one of the top quarterbacks from the pocket last year. And that's not necessarily your reputation. Is that a badge of honor to you?

Newton: I don't think it's necessarily a badge of honor. Pocket, no pocket, running, throwing, my job is to win football games, and I'm just trying to create some kind of way that's going to have the most impact on the most important stat of all, the win-loss column. I want to bring more juice to the win-loss side.

B/R: Your fight with Josh Norman—did you do that intentionally just to spice up camp? Sometimes guys just do that to amp up the dreary days of camp.

Newton: Not necessarily to amp up camp, but what I did want to see come from it is that sometimes the monotonous takes over mentally as well as physically. Some guys are waking up at 6:30 for treatment. Some wake up at 7:30 for the team meeting. They do it every day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, day after day. It's the same thing, same thing, same thing. So when you come to practice, it's the same thing. It's either a walkthrough in the morning or a walkthrough at night, and we're going to have practice one time a day, and we have to maximize that.

You can't just let the same schedule day in and day out carry over into practice. It's nothing that I was getting a sense of. I just didn't want it to happen. I want to create some type of competitive atmosphere while in practice, because coach always says, "Try to make practice game-like." Just showing [in the Panthers' preseason game against Buffalo], guys got their name called and they made the most of it, competing all over the board.

B/R: Steve Smith announced he was going to retire after this season. Do you have a favorite memory of Steve from having played with him for three years?

Newton: I don't necessarily have a favorite story. I just more or less respect his overall approach to the game. You asked me about the fight the other day. That's Steve every day. That was how he was every single day, so I guess some of Steve is rubbing off on me. I can never take that as any type of negative, because he's a person anybody would love to have on their team, and I wish him the best.

B/R: Russell Wilson has obviously accomplished a lot in his first three years in the game. Right or wrong, people measure quarterbacks by how the team performs. Does his success make you jealous? Does it make you happy for him? How do you see it?

Newton: I'm extremely happy for him. I obviously have known him and talked to him. He's a person, whether it's Russell Wilson or Andrew Luck, anybody who plays quarterback in this league—it can be [Robert Griffin III] to Colin Kaepernick—these are all guys who are the competition. You're not supposed to like them or not supposed to do this, but I have a professional appreciation for those guys.

I was extremely excited for [Wilson's] recent contract that he got done, but I understand that his team is completely different than my team. His team, the thing that they ask him to do, is completely different than what my team asks me to do. And what I think he has done is mastered what his team has asked him to do. Whether it's throwing it 13 times, 23 times or 33 times or even 53, whatever that team asks him or me, we have to find a way to win football games.

B/R: Quarterbacks who have made the transition from the wide-open offense that you played in college to the NFL have struggled of late, such as Griffin. You didn't struggle. You played well right away. Is there a reason for that?

Newton: I don't necessarily think that RG3 has struggled, nor has anybody else.

B/R: OK, but they haven't played as well as you right from the start.

Newton: It's just the situation. People don't understand that you get drafted early, you get drafted to a team that needs your help instantly. Gone are the days when guys sit back and get a couple years, the Aaron Rodgers approach. A guy would sit back a couple of years and they would know they are the future. Now it's like instant grits. You have to be able to come in and feed a whole multitude of people and get instant gratification. So when I look to a guy like RG3 and the guys who are coming into this league, I don't think they necessarily have the type of translation talent-wise, but it's getting the people around them who will make them benefit from what they do best.

Marcio Sanchez/Associated Press

Bleacher Report: We've all noticed over the years that your sense of fashion is off the charts. There's a certain gutsiness to what you're willing to wear. With that in mind, if you couldn't be a quarterback, what would you choose to do between being a professional athlete in something else, a preacher or a GQ model?

Newton: Are you giving me options, or are you asking me?

B/R: I'm asking you. These are your choices.

Newton: Well, I'd still be a professional athlete in something. Fashion is always cultivating out of the old professionalism. Not just in sports, but in all the mainstream job opportunities. You see guys who have the 9-to-5 jobs who are wearing the funky socks, guys who are wearing the bow ties or the lapel pins. [They] have to get that fashion sense from what they see on TV. You see the guys in the NBA or MLB or in hockey and see them go leaps and bounds in order to try to create or try to have some fashion sense. My father was a preacher, so I know what that is like. 

B/R: Presentation is important, even in that business.

Newton: Presentation is everything. It may be the first time a person meets you, and it makes all the difference in introducing yourself to other people.

Jason Cole covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.