Tom Talks: Signing Cam Newton makes Patriots even more interesting
The New England Patriots make the NFL more interesting. The Patriots are smart, patient, superbly coached, and run, and have absolute disdain for rules.
What they are not, ever, is boring. They played the long game, waiting until quarterback Cam Newton, a former Carolina Panther if you weren’t aware, was ready. Newton needed a team, and the Patriots needed a quarterback.
The Patriots will pay Newton the veteran minimum, $1.05 million. If I were a cynic, I’d say that he made more than that at Auburn.
With incentives, Newton could make $7.5 million this season. The contract attests to his confidence. Newton believes that, at 31, he can still be outstanding, and if he is, the big money will come.
The Patriots, like the Panthers, will bend their offense to accommodate him.
Carolina has better receivers than the Patriots, but the Patriots have a much better offensive line. If Newton can move, he will again be a force. If he can’t, he’ll be average.
Before Newton, Michael Vick was the prototype for running quarterbacks, but he was flawed, and defensive coordinators exploited that flaw. Be like Mike? No. Beat up Mike. Vick is not a big guy, 6-feet-1 and about 215 pounds, and by the fourth quarter, he ceased to be the fast, elusive and confident player he had been in the first.
Newton brought skills to the position that no player had. He’s 6-5 and 245 pounds, and he was as likely to beat on you as you were on him. In the NFL, a silly stereotype might as well have been framed and hung high on team walls: You can’t win with a running quarterback. Newton compelled general managers and coaches to reexamine that stereotype. He gave running quarterbacks credibility. Look around the league. Can you imagine the NFL without them?
Nobody expects him to run at 31 the way he did, at, say, 26. All the damage all those hits have wrought can’t be shaken off. But he has to move.
Maybe Newton evolves into Aaron Rodgers, not as a passer but as a runner. Even at 36, the Green Bay Packers quarterback is adept at finding space behind the line and then finding a receiver. The man can move. At the very least, Newton has to do that.
If Newton does not recover from the Lisfranc injury, if he draws in and does the rope-a-dope because of the injuries he has collected, or if his legs simply can’t get him where he needs to go, the man ceases to have a chance to be special.
But if he can move, and find himself again, this can be the story of the season.
And won’t it be bizarre to see Newton in Patriots Navy blue, red, silver and white?
For the first time in their lives, some of the Carolina fans that love Newton will pull for the Patriots. For the first time in their lives, some of the New England fans that can’t stand Newton will pull for Newton.
When I told one New England fan and friend that the Patriots had signed Newton, he asked: “As what, a tight end?”
Another Newton detractor said he pulls for the uniform, not the player.
Many Carolina fans, meanwhile, consider their team an instrument of evil, and believe that Panthers abandoned them. The Panthers jettisoned their quarterback, and did it in a manner they deem cold and disrespectful.
Carolina’s Newton decision struck me as business, and I can’t think of a genteel way in which they could have said goodbye.
I don’t know when the NFL will start or many games it will include. But an already fascinating sport has become more interesting.
My Panthers top 5
Last month the Panthers asked fans to vote for the greatest Panther of all time, and included only three candidates – Steve Smith Sr., Luke Kuechly and Julius Peppers. They omitted Newton, they said, because he’s still active, and the candidates were supposed to have retired.
I ranked my top five Panthers this week on Twitter, and kind of got ripped. What? On Twitter? Get out of here.
No, it’s true.
But I didn’t write what I did to elicit attention. I wrote because I believe it. And I hated to leave out linebacker Thomas Davis and tight end Greg Olsen out of my all-time top five. They were so good, and so selfless, and did so much for the community in which they lived.
My top five:
- Smith Sr.
- Kuechly.
- Peppers.
- Jordan Gross
- Newton.
Offensive linemen, even left tackles, even great left tackles, don’t get the respect players at other positions do.
Gross was a great left tackle and a great teammate. On a typical Spartanburg training camp afternoon in which a slight breeze dropped the temperature to 99 degrees, Gross stayed late to work with another lineman. I didn’t recognize the other player’s number. You wouldn’t, either. The guy had no chance to make the team. But instead of running to grab water, Gross worked with him.
Newton, too, is a good teammate. There were seasons in which his line failed him. (But let’s be honest; Newton had a tendency to hold the ball too long, which made him susceptible to hits).
Yet, when was the last time Newton criticized the line? When did you hear him rip the guys who failed to protect him? You didn’t. Ever.
Some said I ranked Gross in front of Newton because it was personal; that I didn’t like Newton. That’s not true.
I ranked Gross in front of Newton because I believe Gross was better at his job than Newton was at his.
Missing baseball in Charlotte
Hate to see the Charlotte Knights and minor league baseball shut down for the season. Loved to spend a summer evening at BB&T Ballpark (now Truist Field), and loved to sneak down and watch a day game. The ballpark is about perfect, and I respect the organization. The Knights care about fans, and it shows.
You’ll see a veteran trying to hang on and make the major leagues one last time, or a young player working against Class AAA pitchers or a hitter whom you know can be a big league star.
You don’t have to watch baseball as intensely as you do football or basketball. And with the Knights, you don’t have to pay major league prices.
This summer is going to be strange anyway. We canceled a July trip to Colorado and an August trip to Minnesota. At the moment, the only trip we hope to take is to Cloth World.
Would have been nice to find a seat in a mostly empty part of the ballpark and grab a piece of summer.
More Patriots cheating
On Sunday, the Patriots signed Newton. On Sunday, the NFL fined the Patriots $1.1 million and a third-round pick in the 2021 draft. The Newton story knocked the NFL fines story to the bottom of the newscast and the back of the sports section.
Coincidence that the Patriots signed Newton on the day their fine was announced? Sure, why not. I hate conspiracies.
The Patriots were fined for – let me make sure I have the proper term – cheating. A video crew they hired filmed the Cleveland Browns, the field, players and coaches.
New England leads the league in coincidences. I swear that if you call the team’s offices in Foxborough, Mass., and get the right extension, you’ll hear: “Hi. This is the New England Patriots, and we can’t come to the phone right now because we’re cheating.”
This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 8:40 AM.