Cam Newton did not have a long career in the NFL as Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. But he lived up to his top billing in the 11 seasons he played. The former #1 overall pick believes he would have had a longer professional tenure had it not been for the wrong choices he made.
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Newton, while discussing the final years of his career, described how he had routinely put himself in “f***ed up situations” while making decisions as a free agent. Cam had a long tenure at the Carolina Panthers (from 2011 to 2019), before joining the New England Patriots in 2020. After a season, he returned to Carolina (2021) for a year before drawing the curtains down on his professional career.
“I was learning more [with the Patriots], but I didn’t get an opportunity to really show that because they drafted a quarterback… I just wish I would have got picked up by New England sooner. And even with Carolina [during the second stint], I’d have preferred to play [there] an additional year… after I was released from Carolina [in 2019], I never had a full offseason with a team,” said Newton on his 4th&1 podcast.
Newton then went on to detail the difficulties he experienced while running offenses with very little preparation time.
Newton: Last time I knew full playbook was in my “first [stint in] Carolina”
Newton was cut by the Panthers in the 2020 offseason. After that, he signed with the Patriots in late June, roughly one month before that season’s training camp began.
That’s clearly not enough time to study a brand-new scheme. And, we are talking about mastering the intricacies of a system perfected by Tom Brady across two decades. An impossible task. His second stint with the Panthers in 2021 was no different.
Newton wished he had extended opportunities in both the places, while stating the last time he “walked up to the line of scrimmage knowing the full playbook” was as a Panther in 2019. His last two seasons involved a lot of guesswork.
“I’m barely understanding the plays, I barely understand the formations… I didn’t have enough time to learn it. I was trying to learn a 20-year offense on philosophy in [dang] near three weeks! That’s what people don’t understand… when I went [back] to Carolina, I was learning an offense in eight days! Oh, and by the way, we’re gonna fire your offensive coordinator,” said Newton.
Evidently, the teams were impatient with Newton. And the foot issue, which ended his 2019 campaign, and his declining effectiveness as a rusher, didn’t help matters either.
Cam was never the sharpest passer, posting a completion percentage over 62% (2018) only once in the first eight years of his career. His running ability was what he banked on. And, with its decline, his overall level of play diminished.
Perhaps if Newton hadn’t suffered his Lisfranc injury early in 2019, he could have built upon his 2018 season. Any true consistency as a passer from then on would have helped him extend his stay in the league. Instead, Cam’s NFL career ended in 2021, when he was just 32.
