Carolina Panthers Name Cam Newton Starting Quarterback

Added on Sep 02, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

During the NFL preseason its become apparent that the Carolina Panthers were ‘strongly leaning’ toward naming 2010 Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton as their starting quarterback. On Thursday night, they made it official–following the Panthers’ 33-17 preseason loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers Newton was named the starting quarterback by Carolina head coach Ron Rivera.

Newton looked fairly sharp during limited playing time in the Panthers’ preseason finale–he even threw his first touchdown pass as a NFL quarterback. Veteran Derek Anderson and former Notre Dame standout Jimmy Clausen saw most of the action at quarterback. After the game Ron Rivera said that Newton wasn’t expected to be the ‘savior’ of the team:

“We didn’t draft Cam to be the savior. We drafted him to help lead this football team.”

Newton will get his first start when the Panthers play at Arizona on September 11. He says that he knows that the challenge of being a NFL starting quarterback has only begun:

“Even with this position given, it doesn’t stop here. I can’t just sit back and say, `I’ve arrived,’ because we’ve got a long way to go. … The record begins now.”

Tackle Jordan Gross was pleased with Newton’s performance during the short time he was in the game:

“Tonight went just how we would like it to go, with our offense playing one series. Cam looked like he was playing his best football.”

The Pittsburgh Steelers also have some questions to answer at the quarterback position. Obviously they’re set at the starting job with Ben Roethlisberger but were looking to evaluate a backup to ‘Big Ben’. Byron Leftwich suffered a broken arm earlier this week and is expected to miss the entire season. Charlie Batch and Dennis Dixon were evaluated to be the #2 man and Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin sounded pleased with both:

“We asked them to come in and run some different things, with some different personnel, and I think they both showed great poise in that. It was a good ending to a nice preseason for us.”

Batch will most likely be the backup to Roethlisberger:

“It was good to get the rust out a little bit. It’s one of those things where you go back and there were a lot of different things that we were working on. I was able to move a little bit, read (the) blitz and move to hot routes.”

The Steelers will also begin their regular season on the road, playing at Baltimore on September 11.