Cam Newton’s team dumped him. No one else jumped in to take him. Welcome to football purgatory.
Prove yourself seemed to be the message. Prove you can play the way we once thought you could. Prove that you can operate in a way that doesn’t screw up the entire program.
This was January 2009, not now. Newton was a 19-year-old near nobody, not a 30-year-old former NFL MVP.
The details are all different. The questions are familiar. The emotions probably as well.