Robby Anderson is officially off the Carolina Panthers. That’s right, the troubled wide receiver just got traded to the Arizona Cardinals. Not even a full day after he was ejected from the ballgame against the Los Angeles Rams by his own head coach. It wasn’t a good look Anderson on the day and he was already having a pretty bad season for the Panthers as it was. Shortly after hearing the news of the trade, he reacted on Twitter positively, responding in only emojis but making it clear that he was thankful.
Robby Anderson And His Incident
For those that weren’t aware of the incident between Robby and his coaches, let’s walk you through what we know. Anderson was seen getting into verbal altercations with the Panthers wide receivers coach Joe Dailey. They were initially talking in the first half but Robby refused to talk in the second. The arguments were bleeding over everywhere else as well. Interim head coach Steve Wilks had to calm down Dailey after the confrontation was settled. Though it wasn’t just Dailey that was getting into fights with Robby. Anderson went at the interim head coach Wilks as well and was eventually escorted out off the field. Wilks and the rest of the staff had enough.
According to Anderson, he said, “My job is, I’m here to do all I can to help us win. It’s third down. I’m being taken out of the game. You know, I don’t think I should be OK with that. So, I made a comment. It’s the money down. Why am I being taken out? And that’s that.” It’s a fair thing to say in this situation but also doesn’t feel like it’s the entire story of stuff that was shared between the two. He continued by saying, “One thing I do, and I always stand on it and continue to do, is I give my all in everything that I do. I don’t play this game for money. I don’t play this game for fame, I play this game because I love the game of football.”
Wilks Responds To On-Field Blow-Up
Throughout the year so far, Anderson has caught 13 passes for 206 yards and a touchdown. At the time he was removed from the game, he had zero catches on 38 offensive snaps. Head coach Wilks said, “I’m going to say this. No one is bigger than the team. And I’m not going to focus and put a lot of attention on one individual. We can talk about the game, can talk about situations within the game. We can talk about the things we’re going to do moving forward. But I’m not putting a lot of energy into one individual.”
Now that Anderson is officially off the team after three seasons with them, the Cardinals are on the hook for his salary. They are going to be paying the remaining $690,000 that he’s owed from the Panthers. Ahead of the 2021 season, Carolina inked Robby to a two-year, $29.5 million extension which had $20 million guaranteed. I take it that the Panthers really are serious about cleaning house and restarting. DJ Moore, Brian Burns and Christian McCaffrey could certainly see themselves on the move shortly as well.
