Cam Newton has been ruled out for the Carolina Panthers game against the Houston Texans on Sunday after he sat out the team’s win over the Arizona Cardinals, and there is still no timetable for his return. The more we learn about Newton’s injury, however, the more significant it sounds.
Newton sustained a foot injury during the preseason and aggravated it in Week 2. It has been described as a mid-foot sprain, but Joseph Person of The Athletic reports that the quarterback is dealing with a Lisfranc injury. Those can be bad news and have a tendency to linger.
There are two different types of Lisfranc injuries, with some involving fractures to the small bones in the foot and others characterized by ruptures to the ligaments in the mid-foot. With Newton’s injury having been described as a sprain, it is likely he is dealing with the latter.
Assuming Newton doesn’t undergo surgery, he could be looking at an absence of four to eight weeks. One sports medicine expert told Larry Brown Sports that Lisfranc injuries involving ligaments have a tendency to heal better long term because developing arthritis is less likely, but the injury still has the potential to linger and take several weeks to fully heal.
What all of this means is that it would be a surprise if Newton is back under center for the Panthers anytime soon. He will need to stay off his foot altogether for several weeks in order for it to heal fully, which means Carolina is turning to Kyle Allen for the foreseeable future. Allen was up to the task in Sunday’s win over the Cardinals, as he completed 19-of-26 passes for 261 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions.
Newton was hampered by a shoulder injury late last season that eventually resulted in him being shut down, but it seemed like he had battled all the way back from that during the summer. The foot injury is just the latest in a string of bad luck the former MVP has had.
