CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Carolina Panthers were on their way to a 9-0 start in November 2015 when quarterback Cam Newton, with a Tennessee Titans defender holding onto his left leg, stretched his 6-foot-5 body and right arm over the goal line from 2 yards away to score a touchdown at Nissan Stadium in Nashville.
Then something really special happened.
Newton pulled himself out of the mass of defenders he’d overpowered and began an end zone dance he’d done a few weeks earlier without fanfare. Newton ended it with a move that infuriated linebacker Avery Williamson so much he got into the quarterback’s face.
The celebration garnered national headlines when Rosemary Plorin of Nashville – who attended the game with her 9-year-old daughter – sent the Charlotte Observer a note she wrote to Newton questioning whether he set a good example with his dance.
After that, the “Dab” (at least Newton’s version of it) became a national phenomenon as the Panthers went on to an NFL-best 15-1 regular-season record and Newton was named NFL MVP.
Flash forward to Sunday’s game at Nissan Stadium (1 p.m. ET, Fox), the Panthers’ first trip to Nashville since that moment, and their situation is the polar opposite.
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The Panthers are 1-9, rookie quarterback Bryce Young is struggling, head coach Frank Reich is on the hot seat and owner David Tepper is being booed at home games. It is an organization with a dark cloud over it.
But on that day in Tennessee eight years ago, something happened that still puts a smile on the faces of the current Carolina players, many of whom were in junior high or high school at the time.
“After Cam blew that stuff up, oh my God, everyone was doing it,” said tight end Tommy Tremble, who was in a Georgia middle school in 2015. “I was doing it. Seeing all the videos of him doing it, the flip of the wrist … oh my gosh, it was the coolest thing since sliced bread.”
The Dab merged pop culture and the NFL like the relationship of Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has today.
“I’m watching the [Chiefs-Eagles] game Monday night with my 9-year-old daughter and she goes, ‘Oh, look, there’s Taylor Swift’s boyfriend,”’ said long-snapper JJ Jansen, who along with linebacker Shaq Thompson are the only members of the 2015 team still on the Panthers’ roster.
“There was a little bit of when you inject pop culture with a professional superstar … in a non-sports world, it sort of took over.”
Jansen reminded you can’t tell the story of the Dab without considering Newton’s personality.
“Cam was always looking for the next thing to get a reaction, to get a laugh, to bring another teammate into the fold,” he said. “It was never just his thing. He wanted the rest of the guys to do it. He took it as a great honor when players from other teams, if they got a sack, they would Dab in front of him.”
Newton’s fun with the Dab spread coast to coast. Jansen recalled seeing videos of little old ladies Dabbing in their front yard or while watching games with their grandkids.
“Cam brought us such a national appeal,” recalled former Carolina tight end Greg Olsen, now an analyst for Fox Sports. “Kids loved him. My mom loved him. That was what was so appealing about Cam. He was equally appealing to my mom as he was to young kids.”
Carolina kicker Eddy Pineiro, 28, recalled how the Dab took over his junior college soccer team in Florida in 2015.
“It was pretty sick [awesome],” he said. “It definitely started a movement. The next big thing I can say after that is probably Cristiano Ronaldo doing the “Siuuu.”
Young, 22, definitely remembers Newton’s Dab, even though he grew up in California.
“I’m not that young,” he said with a laugh.
Asked if he ever Dabbed, Young said, “I think everyone under a certain age at some point has gone through that phase.”
But Young politely declined when asked if he’d like to Dab at his weekly press conference.
“I do not. I do not,” he said, the smile growing bigger. “But I appreciate that offer. I’m going to leave that one in the past.”
Newton didn’t invent the Dab. It was introduced by rapper Skippa Da Flippa and took off in the hip-hop scene in Newton’s hometown of Atlanta in the 2010s.
Newton just took it nationwide after being challenged to do it by his younger brother.
Jansen recalled Newton Dabbing in practice early in 2015 and later in an October game at Seattle. But with all the national buzz that came after he did it against the Titans, paired with Carolina being 9-0 and Newton in the MVP conversation, it took off like a runaway train.
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“He had the football world in the palm of his hands, people imitating what he did and the player he was overall,” said Carolina cornerback David Long Jr., 25, a high school senior in California that year.
Said Carolina guard J.D. DiRenzo, a high school freshman in New Jersey at the time: “Whenever someone would score, that was the first thing you’d see after that.”
Jansen doesn’t expect Young to ever Dab. It’s not in his DNA nor in the DNA of most NFL quarterbacks.
“Cam was one of one,” Jansen said. “There is nobody like him in history. Nobody,”
Newton’s uniqueness got the Dab in unto publications like “GQ” and “Rolling Stone.” In January 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton Dabbed on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
“We want to keep trying to climb to that level where we can have that kind of fun and have that impact on the game,” Tremble said. “It was a statement piece. [The Titans] tried to fight him after it. People were trying to take away his swagger, take away the fun he brought to the game.”
Tremble admits his Dab isn’t up to Newton’s standards. Not as fluid. More stiffness.
But, he added, “If something special happens this weekend, I’ll try my best at it.”
