Panthers quarterback Cam Newton took the league by storm as a rookie in 2011 and Ron Rivera is confident he'll avoid a sophomore slump. "I will say this about a sophomore slump -- if there's anybody that’s going (to) work through it, he's going to work through it," Rivera said. "When the season was over, one of the things he said was he wanted to find a way to make sure he didn't have one. I think the less we talk about it, the less we get caught up in it, the better. "It's like the Madden curse, he really wanted to be the cover. I think that's the thing. Instead of running from it, saying, 'Oh, I hope it doesn’t happen -- it's not going to happen. I'm not going to let it happen.' I think that's his approach to the sophomore slump."