After injured Carolina Panthers cornerback Bené Benwikere wheeled himself into the WFNZ studios for his Tuesday afternoon segment on 'Primetime,' he was his usual insightful self on a number of topics.
Including ...
Did the fallout from New York cause Josh Norman and the Panthers' defensive backs to play with less 'swagger' against Atlanta?
"I saw him try to be mild-mannered. I've watched him the last two years now and he's geeked when he gets to Julio. He is through the roof. You're lucky if you can touch Josh because he's just so in tune, so locked in and ready to go. I felt like — just watching from my house — I didn't see him after he made a play, get up yelling and running 50 yards to celebrate ... A lot of guys were just trying to make sure that they played within the rules."
Can that group be successful playing like that?
"To be honest, no. That's something that coach has talked about all year — 'You need to be yourselves.' The fact that we weren't out there just being ourselves — that hurt us."
Why have so tried to poke holes in what the Panthers have done this season?
"I think just because of us being 14-0, people just don't understand. In their mind, we don't have any big, big players besides Cam or Luke. So since they don't see that we have players that make it work well within the team. It just bothers them because they don't understand how we can make things work because nobody's a name they hear."
How did Norman become so polarizing?
"I think the reason why everyone gets so riled up about Josh is because he burst out of nowhere. It's almost like Richard Sherman all over again. Richard Sherman came out and he did his trash talking, but at the same time, it was mainly because he burst on the scene in a fashion where people didn't understand. It was kind of like, 'Where were you at? You're not a rookie. You were here two, three years ago. Where was this at two, three years ago? Now you think you can talk like that?'"
"But to be honest, Josh has felt this way, he's said these things even when he wasn't able to produce, it's just that it didn't make any headlines, nobody really cared. Now more people see it and they're like, 'Dude, we never even heard of you, so why do you think you can talk like that?'"
"He's been himself from Day One. Even before I got here, that was the first thing I was told in the locker room was, 'Oh yeah, he's a character.' Now it's like, 'Why are you even saying that? I haven't even heard of you before.' But it's like, 'You just never paid attention to me before. It's not like I changed anything.'"