Panthers' Josh Norman admits to 'eye-gouging' Allen Hurns in fumble pile

You know where I never want to find myself? In a pile full of NFL players fighting for a loose football. Especially if Panthers cornerback Josh Norman is in that pile.

During the Panthers' 20-9 win over the Jaguars on Sunday, Norman had himself quite the day. For starters, he picked off Blake Bortles and returned it to the house. And, prior to the interception, Norman forced Allen Hurns to fumble. Then, he recovered the fumble after your typical pile of bodies formed around the loose football.

Actually, I'm not so sure "normal" is an accurate descriptor of the fumble pile. Instead, let's allow Norman to describe it himself (via Black and Blue Review):

"I can't even describe it to you. It was like being in the doghole, trying to get out of there. Fight, fight, fight. Trying to grab the ball, digging in folks' eyes and everything; eye-gouging. I think Hurns didn't like that too well. He was pushing and I went somewhere else and I had to understand it was the game and can't go out there like that."

So, it seems that Norman resorted to gouging Hurns' eyes on Sunday. Except, despite trying to poke out Hurns' eyeballs, Norman didn't really recover the football!

"I seen the ball and said screw that. I'm not going to tackle him; I'm going for the ball. I'm going down with a violent strike and that's what happened. It was on the ground and we picked it up and I ended up getting it then losing it on the ground, but don't tell the referees that. No. 88 ended up recovering it, but we got the ball still. Bene [Benwikere] jumped on it, too."

Memo to the league: Avoid Josh Norman in fumble piles. Also, make sure he actually recovers the football.


(cbssports.com)