Cam no pinhead in ‘ W’
But wears hat with button honoring Rosie the Riveter
DETROIT — Panthers quarterback Cam Newton wore a black hat with a white button on the left side to honor Rosie the Riveter before and after showing he was very focused on football.
The embattled star threw three touchdown passes through three quarters, helping Carolina build a bigenough lead Sunday to hold off the Lions for a 27- 24 victory.
Newton came under fire for making sexist comments to a female reporter this week. He apologized after losing an endorsement deal and getting criticized by the NFL.
The 2015 NFL MVP said he put Rosie the Riveter, flexing her right arm, on his hat after doing homework to learn her iconic impact on WorldWar II.
“I just wanted to have a little notion, a shout- out, to all the strong women,” Newton said.
He was 26- for- 33 for a seasonhigh 355 yards. On perhaps the game’s key play, he converted a third- and- nine from the Panthers’ 24 with a sharp 17- yard pass to Kelvin Benjamin with 2: 00 left while clinging to a three- point lead against a team out of timeouts.
Newton threw a six- yard touchdown pass to rookie Christian McCaffrey to pull the Panthers into a 10- 10 tie early in the second quarter and a 10- yard pass to Devin Funchess for a tiebreaking score with 48 seconds left in the first half. With a perfectly lofted 31- yard pass to Benjamin, Newton put Carolina up 24- 10 early in the third quarter.
“He did a real nice job under some unfortunate circumstances,” Panthers coach Ron Rivera said.
The Panthers ( 4- 1) scored 24 consecutive points after trailing the Lions 10- 3 early in the second quarter. Detroit rallied but could not stop Newton on his last drive to get the ball back.
The Lions ( 3- 2) struggled to move the ball in the air and on the ground until late in the game.
Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, limping after being sacked and hit a lot, threw a four- yard touchdown pass to tight end Darren Fells with 5: 48 left and a 20yard pass for a score to the former pro basketball player with 3: 22 to go.
Stafford didn’t have as much success connecting with starting tight end Eric Ebron, who dropped a pass in the end zone and had another pass go through his hands.
Protecting Stafford has become an issue. He has been sacked six times in consecutive games after being sacked a total of six times in his first three games.
“Getting hit one time is too many, so that was clearly a problem,” Lions coach Jim Caldwell said.