Happy Panthers Fan: No matter what happens with Cam Newton, we'll always have Arizona

By Lauren Brownlow, WRALSportsFan columnist/reporter

Ilsa: But what about us?

Rick Blaine: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.

This Panthers' fan and middle-aged woman is well aware that happiness — the euphoric, mind-bending kind that makes you feel as if your body might explode and rainbows and stars come shooting out of a hole in the middle of your chest — is fleeting.

But like Humphrey Bogart's Rick in Casablanca, I don't care.

He and Ilsa would always have Paris. They recreated that magic the night before. Because Paris was a feeling, not a place.

And now? We'll always have Arizona.

The state of Arizona holds a special place in my heart for reasons both sports and non-sports related. I took my first solo vacation there this April, and it was wonderful. I had fun, I was able to relax, and I learned to start loving and valuing myself again in a way that I wasn't able to before.

When I pulled out of the airport in my rental car, still slightly terrified of being on my own, I decided to turn on sports radio on my way to Flagstaff from Phoenix. They were talking about the Panthers trading for Sam Darnold and trading away Teddy Bridgewater, the latter of which had just happened that day. They were also wondering aloud whether or not the Cardinals would bring back Larry Fitzgerald, their beloved long-time wide receiver.

I thought to myself how powerful the connection between a place and a player can be, let the pang of nostalgia hit me right in the feels and then turned it off. I had more important things to concentrate on.

Like myself.

The entire time I was there, I never made the connection that I was in the same place where Newton started his career as a Panther. He won a national championship there. And that debut he made as a Panther in Glendale back in 2011? That mix of hope and joy and excitement that I felt when this special quarterback was setting the field aflame with his performance, even in a loss? It's the memory of the feeling more than the memory of the game itself that I cling to so fiercely. When it's referenced, I can't help but smile.

Places and things that seem innocuous to others take on additional meaning for us. Now, when I see the red rocks of Sedona or Mount Humphrey towering over Flagstaff or the sun setting from my hotel room balcony in Phoenix, turning the mountains into a brilliant orange and purple, it's not the nostalgia for the place. It's the memory of how that place, or that event — or both — made me feel.

Newton has always made people feel things, both positively and negatively. There are people out there who are relatively neutral towards him, but I've always maintained those people at least lean a little one way or the other. If you don't like Cam Newton, you generally REALLY don't like him, and you'll probably say pretty silly or irrational things about him as a result. The same exact thing can be true in reverse, of course.

Newton put the Carolina Panthers on the map. He made people care about them. That is still true. The Carolina Panthers had never before and haven't since had a quarterback that I was sure at least had the capability of winning a game on his own if he needed to. The word that was used about Newton a lot on Sunday was 'energy'. Newton brings that with him everywhere he goes, no matter what his injury status is. Maybe you find it off-putting. Maybe you find it entrancing. There isn't much in between, but the vast majority of his teammates and coaches are as spellbound by Newton as the rest of us are.

The charisma and talent he brought with him to Charlotte changed the entire franchise. And he brought a joy to the game that was either contagious or rage-inducing, depending on your perspective. For me, it was always contagious. The 2015 Panthers' season was easily the most fun I've had during an entire season. Easily.

The last time I remembered feeling as blissfully happy as I was on Sunday when Newton ran back out there and scored on his first two touches was probably the NFC semifinal round against the Seahawks when the Panthers took a 31-0 first-half lead. In both cases, I was optimistic and excited, but guarded. And then things went so well that I, about halfway through my pregnancy, refused to leave the spot I was sitting in my living room until anything started to go badly. (It did, so I did.) I still worried about what was to come.

But it was surreal. You couldn't have written a believable fictional version of the first half of that game. And the same was true for Newton's return.

I've been on a roller-coaster of emotions with this team for awhile, as all of you regular readers know. You also know that I did not like the way they left things with Newton and I thought that he deserved better. I didn't like the way they treated Teddy Bridgewater. And as much as I liked Bridgewater the human being, I never could feel the same way about him that I did about Cam.

Still kind of in shock from the news that he was coming back at all, I tempered my expectations for how much he'd play. They'd just signed him on Thursday. Surely he wasn't going to play a lot, if at all. But he'd traveled with the team, and just having him back on the sideline was enough to get me excited.

And I didn't expect him to score the first time he touched it. Or the second. Or for the Panthers to do ... well, everything they did in that football game. I just let one good thing after another hit me like waves. I didn't know what to do with my hands. My face felt like it was on fire.

When he got into the end zone that first time, looked into the camera as only he can and screamed "I'M BACK?" Tears welled up in my eyes. It was just too much. It was like I'd written this insane fantasy fan fiction story about how this game would play out and there it was, playing out beyond my wildest dreams.

Do I have any idea how this will end? No. Do I care right now? No. And neither should you.

I'm going to do the same thing I did when I was worried about how I'd do driving a rental car by myself for the first time or trying to find my way around the beautiful trails in Sedona alone — just go with it, baby. Just enjoy it. Feel what you feel. Let it in. Don't ruin the moment by worrying about what bad things could happen. Take a lesson I had to learn the hard way: just enjoy it while it lasts. Savor every moment.

Or, take advice from the man himself:

Say less.

CAM NEWTON FASHION UPDATE

It's with great pleasure that I can announce the return of this feature.

I was so excited to see Newton back that I didn't even have it in me to poke (loving) fun at his outfit. I think my favorite tweet that I saw about it referenced Toon Town and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I love it. I still laughed. The only point I will make is that it was 84 degrees in Arizona yesterday. A suit is ... certainly a choice. But Cam can pull it off, because he believes in himself and his look in a way most of us have never believed in anything.

A special shoutout as well for Cam and David Tepper cosplaying as Westworld characters:

PETTINESS CORNER

I mean, all of the other NFC South teams lost! Dallas *WENT FOR TWO* up by 30+ in Atlanta. (Which is wild!) The New Orleans Saints lost, which is a thing that I will never tire of seeing.

But the real pettiness is the sense of shame I felt when this almost word-for-word tweet came into my head:

That's not a very nice thing for me to say, or tweet, so I didn't. And none of this is Sam Darnold's fault. Well, on the field it is. But he didn't sign himself. He didn't pay himself. He didn't trade away draft picks for himself.

WHAT'S NEXT

Well ... Ron Rivera is coming back. And Cam is almost certainly starting against him.

Keeping in character for Rivera, though, he doesn't really want to talk about it. At least not yet.

I have a complicated relationship with Rivera. As a human being, from everything that I know about him from his forward-facing persona to what my friends in media tell me, he is top notch. He's a very likable man for sure.

I didn't think he was a perfect football coach. I'm still undecided on whether or not he was better than Matt Rhule. It's still a little early for Matt. But the fact that I'm even having to consider this doesn't speak all that well to the new hire, even if I think both Rivera and the Panthers still likely agree it was the best idea to get a fresh start away from one another.

Still, I wonder if Rivera the human will have some of the same feelings I did on Sunday being back in that stadium. It feels good to him. It feels familiar. I hope that he feels all of those things, even if obviously he will want his team to win.

Am I going to worry about how bad it would feel to lose to the Redskins? Nope.

I'm just going to enjoy every moment of being reunited with the best quarterback in Panthers' history.