The Carolina Panthers are shutting Cam Newton down the rest of the 2019 season, placing the veteran quarterback on injured reserve.
“For the past seven weeks, Cam has diligently followed a program of rest and rehab and still is experiencing pain in his foot,” general manager Marty Hurney said, per the team’s website. “He saw two foot specialists last week who agreed that he should continue that path prescribed by the team’s medical staff, and that it likely will take significant time for the injury to fully heal.
“We have said all along that it is impossible to put a timetable on this injury. Nobody is more frustrated with that fact than Cam. He’s one of the fiercest competitors I’ve been around during my 20-plus years in the League. At this time, we have decided that the best decision to reach the goal of bringing the foot back to 100 percent is to place Cam on injured reserve.”
Newton injured his foot in the Panthers’ third preseason game. He attempted to play though the pain the first two weeks of the season but was unable to play well and the Panthers went 0-2. Afterward, he shared in a YouTube video that he suffered a Lisfranc injury that would take weeks to heal.
Since then, Newton has been unable to practice, and now he’s going to miss the remainder of the season to fully heal up and hopefully get ready for the 2020 campaign.
Though, it will be fascinating to see if the Panthers are going to just give him the starting job back. Outside of a brutal showing in the team’s blowout loss to the undefeated San Francisco 49ers, backup Kyle Allen has been very good and has just one loss on record.