Quarterback Cam Newton is the Carolina Panthers 2015 Ed Block Courage Award winner, the team announced Tuesday. The award honors one player from each NFL team that shows courage on and off the field. Newton was selected for the award in a vote by his teammates.
In the 2015 regular season, Newton produced an NFL-leading 45 total touchdowns, including a career-high 35 passing. Newton is the first player in NFL history with at least 30 passing touchdowns (35) and 10 rushing touchdowns (10) in a single season. Newton finished the year with a career-high 99.4 passer rating, eighth-best in the NFL.
Newton’s career year came just one season after dealing with injuries that limited his availability on the field. Newton entered the 2014 season recovering from an offseason ankle surgery and then missed two games with an early-season rib injury and a late-season back injury suffered in a car accident. Newton managed to overcome those obstacles to pass for more than 3,100 yards and rush for more than 500 yards.
Since entering the NFL in 2011, Newton has produced 21,470 combined rushing and passing yards, the most ever in a player’s first five seasons. His 160 total touchdowns are the second-most by a quarterback in his first five NFL seasons. He is the only player in NFL history to have five seasons with 3,000 or more passing yards and 500 or more rushing yards at any point in a career.
Off the field, Newton is committed to making a positive impact in youth education, physical fitness, and health throughout the Charlotte and Atlanta communities through the Cam Newton Foundation. Since 2012, the Cam Newton Foundation has donated over $400,000 to public school systems, impacted over 4,500 student-athletes through positive programming, and has fed or provided help for more than 5,000 children and adults during the holiday seasons.
The Ed Block Courage Award is named in honor of Ed Block, the longtime head athletic trainer of the Baltimore Colts who was a pioneer in his profession and a respected humanitarian.
Recent winners of the Panthers’ Ed Block Courage award include Greg Olsen (2014), Ryan Kalil (2013), Thomas Davis (2011) and Jordan Gross (2010).
