Former Carolina Panthers cornerback Josh Norman watched his career go from 0 to 100 in 2015—or, as he calls it, the “Jay-Z bar year.” It wasn’t normal.
And it didn’t start off normal for the team either, with the prelude to their magical run to Super Bowl 50 having been headlined by a heated pull-apart fight at training camp. You probably know what we’re talking about . . .
Well, Norman recently joined VladTV for a chat and talked about it himself. During his sit-down interview with the popular celebrity news outlet, the 34-year-old recounts exactly what went down between himself and quarterback Cam Newton seven years ago on that fateful summer afternoon.
It all started with Cam coming into his MVP form.
“We ended up having that moment where in practice, like, Cam just was like torchin’ us one day,” Norman began. “And it wasn’t really torchin’ us, we just weren’t playing up to what we normally would do. We just basically rolled up out of bed and showed up. We didn’t brush our teeth. We didn’t wash our face. We just went out there early and just showed up.
“And so when that happened, he was yellin’ and all this and like hittin’ us. And like, hold on. Wait a minute. Like, we gotta check ourselves. We are the No. 1 defense in the league, like, let us go back and do this over. Let us brush our teeth and wash our face and get us together, ya know? And so when that happened, like Thomas Davis, Luke Kuechly . . . like, guys looked at each other like, Kurt Coleman looked at each other and Roman Harper—like, ‘Yo, let’s get our stuff together. Let’s get our [expletive] together.”
Turns out, something really did get together—hands and faces.
“So we did, we buckled up. I came in the slot. I ended up going against Philly [Brown] and so he ran a route, I undercutted it,” he continued. “I saw it kinda the whole way. Cam threw it, ’cause he was gettin’ pressured upfront. And so I end up pickin’ it off, got it, ran all the way back. Cam came by, I stiff-armed him in the face and, like, literally went into the end zone and slammed the ball and was like, ‘Aight, now what?’
“So as soon as I turned around, shoot, big 6-5 in my face like, ‘Yo, listen, I see you scored. But don’t put your hand in my face again like that.’ And I’m looking at him like, ‘Bro, who you talkin’ to like . . . ?’
“I had a flashback. So we basically, like, at each other’s face. And so I grabbed his face mask, like, and I pulled him down to my level. And so he grabbed me. And then I end up hip-tossin’ him. That’s probably why you saw his helmet comin’ off. His whole offensive line came in and bum-rushed me. And I’m looking at my guys like, ‘What’s up?”
Norman admitted he didn’t have a clear head in that moment, hence his physical engagement with the star quarterback—a particularly huge no-no in NFL practices. Luckily, however, the scuffle sharpened up the two sides and brought them closer together for a dominant 17-1 journey to the game’s biggest stage.
“At that time, I ain’t even see anything,” he said. “I just saw red, bro. It just took me back. And so we talked about it at the end of the day in the showers. And so, I get it. We gon’ get at each other, but that’s gonna make us better. That’s gonna make us compete. That’s gonna make us worthy of the chance of actually fighting for a championship.”
Amazingly enough, it did. It also made for the best year of Norman’s career, the best year of Newton’s career and the best year in the history of the franchise.
