RE: His 44 tattoo and if he is looking to get that number“I think I’m going with No. 34, 44 has family significance for me but I mean, it’s not significant to the point where I need the number.”RE: Spending time out of football and what he gained from that experience“It helped me out a lot. Sitting out of football for two years was not something that I wanted to do, not something that I planned, but it helped me mature and grow as a man so that I can handle business and get myself to this point in my life. I guess everything happens for a reason, and I don’t think without that point in my life I would be here today.”RE: Where he spent the two years out of college and what his days were like then“I worked plenty of jobs, a lot of warehouse jobs. Just tried to stay in shape, working out, because I knew I wanted to get back into football. The opportunity presented itself, and I ran with it.”RE: Dave Gettleman describing him as a good tackle box runner and if he could elaborate on his strengths as a runner and his running style“I think I’m a tough, hard-nose runner. I think I’m very versatile. A lot of people say I’m a good inside the tackle runner, which I feel like that’s one of my biggest strengths along with vision and definitely ball security. Those three things I think helped me excel.”RE: His experience at Auburn“I had a great experience. The fans there, it’s none like it in college football. The coaches, staff, my teammates, that’s one of the biggest things that I missed in some years being out of football was being with my guys, my teammates and all those types of things. So, I had a great experience at Auburn, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”RE: If he has had an opportunity to meet Cam Newton over the last couple of years at Auburn“I’ve seen Cam. From all the accounts that I know of he’s a great guy, funny. We haven’t really sat down and really talked or really spoke on that type of level, but I’ve seen him occasionally in the building because he works out while he’s there.”RE: Not being called Cam at Auburn because of Cam Newton“First, it wasn’t that I had a problem with it; first people had a problem with calling me Cam because they already had one. So I said, ‘OK, that’s fine then, I’ll go by I guess CAP.’ And we went from there with it. People at Auburn are sensitive about their legends and Cam definitely qualifies in that category.”RE: If he was known as Cam before getting to Auburn“I’ve been Cam all my life and I mean when I got to Auburn, some people called me Cam but most of the time I was called ‘CAP.’ My name is Cameron Artis-Payne, so it’s ‘CAP.’ So, that’s a little name game for me.”RE: If he will introduce himself as ‘Cam,’ ‘Cameron,’ or ‘CAP’ in the locker room for the first time“Cam. That’s what my mom calls me; that’s what everybody that knows me calls me. I’m going to introduce myself as Cam, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”RE: The circumstances around being out of football for two years and what it taught him“One of the biggest things it taught me was that education is very important if you want to do anything with your life. One of the biggest reasons was the fact that I didn’t take education serious and also I wasn’t highly recruited coming out of high school and trying to go to prep school and I still didn’t get what I wanted as far as scholarship offers. Instead of going to like a D-II or a D-III or something like that, I sat out and found my way to the best opportunity for me instead of rushing into something.”RE: If being the 15th running back taken leaves him with a chip on his shoulder to prove he’s better than the guys taken before him“I’m going to have to prove that I’m better than more than a handful of them. At the end of the day, I’ve always got a chip on my shoulder. Just from me being who I am and how I worked to get here. I really don’t feel like there are many people that have the drive or the desire that I do to be great and to get to this point. At the end of the day, whether I was a first round draft pick or whether I was the 15th overall running back, I was going to come in there with a chip on my shoulder. But definitely because I’m the 15th running back off the board I’m going to have to prove a lot of people wrong.”RE: If he feels the Panthers running back situation is a good situation for a back“Actually I do. It’s a great situation for any running back, especially me. They have a great running back still there right now, Jonathan Stewart. They have some very talented guys at that spot behind him as well. At the end of the day, it’s a great spot for any running back to land because they run the ball, and you have a guy like Cam operating the offense.”