Quotes from Thursday’s conference call with Carolina-based media and former Panthers CB Josh Norman.

How much are you looking forward to this game?

“Just as much as I’m looking forward to being Santa Claus.”

So what kind of gift is Santa Claus going to deliver to the Panthers?

“I don’t know, man. Maybe some Boss robes. But at the same token, we’re trying to go out here and do our thing.”

Can you learn anything from Steve Smith’s ‘revenge game’ a couple of years ago?

“He said something about they expected him to go off, but he didn’t. He just did his thing quietly. I’ve got a different outlook.”

You can’t hold your tongue?

“Can’t hold my tongue? I don’t know if you want to say that much. I will say this, though. You guys know me better than I think anyone else and you should know how this is going to go down.”

So how is it going to go down?

“I’m pretty sure you guys know. So to try to fish for something? I’ve gotten better at this. I’ve gotten better at it.”

Would the Panthers be a playoff team right now if you were still here?

“My whole philosophy in whatever I do is winning, and if we’re not winning, we’re losing. And I’m not a loser. So we’ll find something or some kind of way to get some fix. I know I can’t be everybody or be there in those times, but I know one thing – I’m not going to sit there and lie down and die. I’m going to come out fighting. And I’m going to fight somebody else who’s trying to get a win if I have to. And whatever it is, I’m going to touch somebody else, and that’s going to touch that person, and it’s going to fall on and fall on. I feel as no matter where I was at – if I was there or here – it’s going to touch somebody. Somebody’s going to get it in their system and that’s going to make them want to defeat the person across from them. Whether they want to or not, shoot, we’re going to talk this thing out. I don’t really know what they got going on this year, but I do know that I know how I am as a person and the caliber player that I bring to any team, so I would think it would be different. Definitely so.”

When did you realize you weren’t part of the Panthers’ core?

“I don’t know. I guess when whatchamacallit said it.”

You don’t want to say his name?

“I guess you guys know his name. It’s not hard to say that. It’s not hard to think of who that person is. I guess when he said it in a presser one day, and I overheard him say it, and I was like, OK, cool, that’s what’s up then. You got to look at it in all consciousness. I’m not beating a dead horse or nothing by saying none of this stuff. But he didn’t draft me; he didn’t bring me in. Marty Hurney did. So at the end of the day, I had no ties to that and I understand that. The personality, how I am, probably don’t suit some people in that atmosphere. But it’s cool because I had been there my whole life. I gave them my all. I gave everything I could do, and at the end of the day, it seems as if I wasn’t worthy enough to be there. I got fired. So I’m kind of taking it like that. And at the end of the day, I’m helping someone else out and being better on another team. We’re doing pretty good and working to get better.”

When would you have signed your franchise tag tender?

“I don’t know, it would’ve gotten done eventually, I guess. Shoot, I guess when communication would’ve continued to pick it, which it didn’t. So whatever.”

Can you expand more about how you feel you were muzzled by the Panthers, who are more of a buttoned-up organization?

“Nothing’s wrong with how they do things over there in the system of how everything is kind of buttoned-up. I think you put it perfectly. Buttoned-up. Over here, it seems as if I can button my collar down a little bit. And nothing’s wrong with that, either. But I’m free. I’m carefree. I like to do things differently, but I do have a sense of respect, I do have a sense of respect and I do have a sense of honor and dignity. I do listen to my (superiors). I don’t break rank. I used to, but I got broken out of that. And that’s what I learned there is that discipline. You’ve got to have discipline. That’s a disciplined organization and team and I learned that from them and I am grateful for that. So I don’t take that as any kind of knock against them. It’s just when I got here, I could probably show what I learned there here and be free about it and be open about it. And that’s a good thing, too. So you’ve got to take the best of both worlds and try to look at them in a positive, not so much in a negative light.”

What did you learn from Steve Wilks and Ron Rivera that you took to Washington?

“Wilks pretty much taught me the importance of using your tools. He pretty much gave me my tool belt. So when you look at Batman and his whole little belt, his Batarang he has around his little stomach, Wilks gave me my first tool belt. I got to give him credit for that. And they showed me how to use different techniques and different tools that I can switch up on and use with an offensive guy if he so much threatens me. I got to give him credit for that. For Coach Rivera, it was rocky at first. It was very much so rocky. I was in his doghouse, which I don’t even understand why I was there. But he came out later, and he told me about it, and I kind of had to hold myself and look at it and be like, OK, shoot, I can only control what I can control and that’s my work ethic. I can’t control anything else. I cannot control the guys in front of me, or behind me, I can’t control that. Only thing I can do is be who I am. And I did that. And I worked. And Coach Rivera finally saw fit to put me in the game one day. He told me not to come back out and ever since then I never left the starting lineup. From that point on, our relationship started to grow, and he started to trust me more. Then we had that conversation that really opened my eyes, and I was just like, ‘Wow, OK, I forgive you, and we can move on from this.’ We’ve been cool ever since. It was just knowing that and understanding him and seeing personality and letting him be who I am; it was just like like peas and carrots.”

Is there anything other that could have happened behind the scenes that would’ve explained the Panthers’ decision to rescind your franchise tag?

“I really don’t know. Gettleman has been nothing but nice to me since I’ve been there. He’s been nice. He hasn’t done anything to ridicule or damage me in my seeing. Every time I saw him in passing on the field and everything, he always had nice things to say. It’s just when that situation came up, it was totally out of left field. I didn’t know what was going on. My agent is a representative of me, and that’s kind of how he took it and looked at it, and I’m like, ‘Well dang, I thought you would know me better than that.’ And it just went downhill from there. It almost felt like I was stabbed in the back in a way. But at the same time, I’m not saying that he probably meant to do that in that way. It was just probably the business aspect of it and the money factor and what he believes and how he learned how to do things. But at the same time, he hasn’t been nothing but nice to me until that came about. I was just like, ‘Wow, smile on your face and go behind your back and do stuff like that?’ It’s like, jeez, that’s tough. But like I said, I respect him and what his position was, it’s just that I was a little salty about it. And of course, if you’ve been somewhere all your life, 28 years, almost 29 now, it just like, what the heck? You didn’t expect that to happen, but it did, and things worked out for the best. Can’t argue with that. God has truly blessed me in a way where he put me up here, and I can’t be more happy about it because I’ve learned. If I had stayed in Carolina, I probably wouldn’t have learned the life lessons I’ve learned today.”

How much do you think the fact that you’re not a buttoned-down guy weigh into Dave’s decision?

“I don’t know. I’m free born; I’m a free spirit. If you guys tell everyone in the group to go right, I’m going left. That’s just me. That’s just what you’re going to get. I’m not going to shy away from anything. I’m going to be real about it and I’m going to be honest whether you like it or not. I don’t know how much they really care for that, but that’s just me and how I do things. I’m not going to try to shy away from me being myself. If that’s not what you want, then so be it. And it was done to where it’s not what they wanted. That’s kind of how I took it. I think if you really want somebody, you’ll do all you can to try to keep them, but if you don’t, then so be it. There’s no animosity toward anything. It’s what happened, and we’ll see what happens on Monday.”

Was your training camp fight with Cam Newton just a point when one of the alpha dogs felt they needed to step forward?

“I think it was. I really do because we were both at the top of our games and at the top level of our profession. It was the hot heat of freakin’ Spartanburg, man. Gah-to-mighty. Them bugs was out there ragging. We got together and we were just fighting hard on the defense side. Thomas Davis was like, ‘Make a stop!’ because the offense was kicking our butts a good bit and Cam was out there going around doing cartwheels and high-kicks and all kinds of stupid stuff making fun of our defense. We just locked down like, look man, this crap is not about to happen. And so we come over there and we get onto a man-on-man situation and I go inside and get on one of the wide receivers and he throws a strike to him and I just undercut it and intercepted it and I went back to the house with it. I saw him and I just gave him a nice little stiff-arm and he tried to tackle me. I got in the end zone and he started talking and I was like, ‘Hold on, who you think you’re talking to?’ I know I was in my mind, so I was in a game-type situation. That’s kind of how I got amped up. Then we just went at it. Next thing I know, the offensive line just came and just dog-piled me. I was like, ‘Dang, where my defensive guys at?’ They started to pull me off. I was still hot. I so hot to the point where I just started crying, I think. Then I just decided to try to get over it. Then we all came up and huddled up and Coach was like, ‘We don’t want to see that, but do want to see that because you know we’re fighting for each other. You know we’re giving it a 110 percent, max effort.’ I think when we got to the shower he told me, ‘Look man, we might have a fight every day, but guess what, we’re going to make the best out of each other.’ I could really respect that, I really could. I think after that we got ready to go see a movie and I took a picture letting everybody know that everything was cool because that thing got blown up out of proportion. It was one of those things where I never did back down. I don’t care if he had a red jersey on or not, but I’m going to fight just as hard as you are to defend what’s mine. And he did the same thing. I think we both saw that and I think it touched not only us, but the rest of our teammates and it got something into them and we went on a crazy run, man.”

Do you expect Cam to challenge you Monday night?

“Do I? What kind of question that is? Look, Cam can’t stay away from a challenge just as much as I can’t stay away from a challenge, so for you to sit up here and say, ‘Is he going to challenge me?’ That’s not even a question. I just hope when he does I’m so ready for his challenge, myself. I can’t wait for it.”

How’s Delta doing?

“Delta is being Delta. Same ‘ol Clyde 747. High-stepping, catching the wind.”

What was your take on Cam getting benched for not wearing a tie to Seattle?

“Hey man, Coach Rivera, everybody is the same, nobody is different. I mean shoot. That’s the type of stern discipline that they have there. Yeah, man, you’ve got to be suited and booted. I’m still that way today. You’re not going to catch me without a tie going on a road trip even though we’ve got a laxed dress code. I’m still doing that. I’ve still got thoughts of shirt, tie and jacket. Don’t wear nothing else. I still kind of have that in my head too, so I kind of still wear ties even though I don’t have to. It was no big deal; I think everybody else blew it out of more proportion than it should be. Coach Rivera always had that rule in his whole coaching staff, so I don’t see anything wrong with that. But I don’t know, I’m not there, I can’t be that guy to tell you more about it.”