What I will miss most about Cam Newton carrying the Carolina Panthers through so many dozens of games boils down to one word:
Joy.
Newton did a lot of things differently. But his joy for the game and for life blanketed all of it through his nine years as a Panther, a tenure that officially ended Tuesday when the team thanked him for his service _ and released him.
The quarterback would smile in the middle of a huddle, or while playing hide-and-seek between the tackling dummies at practice, or just before he was about to juke a safety.
In 2017, Newton made time at the line of scrimmage to tease Green Bay's Clay Matthews, as Matthews yelled out to his teammates what he believed to be the Panthers' next play.
Said Newton to Matthews in an exchange picked up by a microphone: "You've been watching film, huh? That's cool. Watch this!"
Newton dropped back and fired a touchdown pass on the play to Christian McCaffrey. It was "Watch this" material, for sure, just as so many hundreds of moments were for Newton.
McCaffrey's business-like approach to football meant that in his rookie year, you could sometimes watch him for an entire game and never see him smile. But Newton eventually lightened him up, reminding McCaffrey that they were lucky to play a kid's game for money.
Wrote McCaffrey on Instagram on Tuesday, referring to Newton by uniform number: "Thank you 1! You changed the way I approached the game and put the fun back in it for me. I'll always owe you for that."
