If you somehow had “the 2010 and 2011 Carolina Panthers being talked during Super Bowl week” on your 2025 bingo card, stop reading this and go buy some lotto tickets right now. Somehow, someway, though here we are, with Cam Newton inserting a decade-old Panthers crew right into the national conversation with his recent comments about the team he joined featuring a “locker room of losers.”
There was immediate clapback from Cam’s comments, which were made on Travis Hunter’s podcast while discussing the possibility of the two-way Colorado star going No. 1 overall in the 2025 NFL Draft, mostly from former Panthers star wide receiver Steve Smith.
But more guys have weighed in now as well. Captain Munnerlyn, in a convo with The Athletic’s Joseph Person, called Cam’s comments “a slap in the face” and “crazy” while pointing out the roster in place had been a playoff team just a few years before.
“For him to say that we was losers was a slap in the face,” Munnerlyn said. “This was a team who was two years removed from playing in the NFC divisional round against the Arizona Cardinals. We lost a couple pieces. We had Checkdown Jimmy Clausen at quarterback and we had a bad year. … For him to say losers was crazy.”
When we initially discussed Cam’s comments, I pointed out there were actually a ton of great players on those teams. (And, side note, Clausen is catching strays left and right in this discussion, just a tough scene for him.) Ryan Kalil was someone I erroneously left off the list! He made the Pro Bowl in 2010. As did Jordan Gross, who I may have left off when discussing this roster, and who had some thoughts on Newton’s comments as well.
“There were iconic Panthers players when Cam got there. And you’d be foolish to say that he wasn’t a gigantic addition to the success of the organization when he arrived — also when Ron Rivera arrived,” Gross told Person. “So there’s a pretty damn good argument that (Rivera) had a lot to do with it as well.”
Charles Johnson also jumped in on social media, voicing his displeasure and suggesting he has plenty of Cam stories to provide if people are trying to get into a mud-slinging contest.
Personally I have great memories of those Panthers teams from 2011 through 2015 and while I don’t want to see them ruined through hearing bad things about the locker room … having said that … SPILL THE DAMN TEA, RANDY.
Former Panthers offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz, now an analyst for Fox Sports and SirusXM, noted the core of the roster went 12-4 two years before.
That’s the refrain you’ll hear from these guys and it’s accurate: the Panthers were a really good team for a pretty lengthy period of time. Some of the dudes Cam is talking about are headed to the Hall of Fame eventually and a handful of them played in the Panthers’ first trip to the Super Bowl. That Panthers team that lost to the Cardinals in the divisional round to a white-hot Cardinals team was a really good Panthers squad! They just got nuked by Larry Fitzgerald on a really bad day for Jake Delhomme. And then the end of the John Fox era happened to be really ugly.
Munnerlyn also pointed out to Person that Cam may just be trying to remain relevant by saying things that are outlandish.
“He wants to be relevant still,” Munnerlyn said. “He’s in this media world where he does his podcasts and [ESPN’s] ‘First Take’ stuff, which is good. I’m happy for him. I’m proud of him. But I think he still says some stuff just to be relevant still. And if you know Cam, you’ve been around him for years, that’s Cam Newton.”
The thing is, he’s not wrong here. That feels pretty accurate. And by saying what he said, Newton managed to incite multiple responses from a slew of former teammates, which has only kept his name in the conversation, even if it’s to the detriment of some really good football players.
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