Can we finally stop pretending that Cam is good?

[yukon cornelius]

Hurley with a not particularly low level breakdown of how the fanbase is bonkers and he is sick of people saying Newton can't throw the ball.

It is essentially the counterpoint to that weird and incredibly biased thread Ian made at the end of the season.

Of course the bozos who should check it out won't because it won't reinforce wht they want to hear.

For everyone else it should give some optimism if Cam ends up being QB1.

you beat me to the punch

 

[luuked]

I guess its possible, but i don't think 'brain fogg' would be responsible for newton throwing the ball in the dirt or missing a receiver by three feet on a ten yard pass, I think a shoulder injury would.

Brain fog or whatever you want to call it would certainly be responsible for him processing things too slowly leading to sacks, inaccurate because hurried throws and forced passes.

Given the short offseason and timeframe to learn the offense he already was doing too much thinking on the field. There is a vast difference in the quality of his throws between those where he just did things instinctively and those where he had to think. Add in another impediment from COVID on top and it is easy to see how everything would melt down even more.

This (mental component) and his footwork being extremely inconsistent leading to over and underthrows are separate issues.

The latter one is more concerning because there is no guarantee it won't happen again.

 

[amfootball]

I don't know. We all watched him throw balls in the dirt, over guys heads, behind receivers, and throw screen passes to the other team. I mean we all have eyes. It was pretty hard to miss.

 

[reflexblue]

Brain fog or whatever you want to call it would certainly be responsible for him processing things too slowly leading to sacks, inaccurate because hurried throws and forced passes.

Given the short offseason and timeframe to learn the offense he already was doing too much thinking on the field. There is a vast difference in the quality of his throws between those where he just did things instinctively and those where he had to think. Add in another impediment from COVID on top and it is easy to see how everything would melt down even more.

This (mental component) and his footwork being extremely inconsistent leading to over and underthrows are separate issues.

The latter one is more concerning because there is no guarantee it won't happen again.

I hope your right, he was doing really well before the rona struck. It adds a variable that no one has dealt with before

 

[archstanton543]

I don't know. We all watched him throw balls in the dirt, over guys heads, behind receivers, and throw screen passes to the other team. I mean we all have eyes. It was pretty hard to miss.

Don't forget the tipped passes. So many tipped passes...

 

[luuked]

I hope your right, he was doing really well before the rona struck. It adds a variable that no one has dealt with before

I don't know if I am right or how feasible is to make him more consistent. He has an entire offseason to learn the offense and work with a QB coach on his footwork. I am just tired of reading how he wasn't able to throw a ball, because that you can refute easily by checking out any of last year's games.

Consistency is king when it comes to QBs. And that is one he failed miserably.

 

[Mack Herron]

In a month this thread will be on the second page.

 

[sean10mm]

It's hyperbole to say he never completed a good throw in 2020, sure.

If you want to make the semantic quibble that his throws often looking like garbage wasn't literally his arm, but rather a bunch of other factors that made it so his throws regularly looked awful... sure why not. Not sure how that makes the situation better, though.

If anything it would be MORE comforting if the whole thing could be blamed on a new arm/shoulder injury, because that would create the reasonable hope that the injury could heal and he could throw like an actual NFL starter again. But if his problems are some complex matrix of *points fingers at 12 things at once* I dunno, man.

But the overall disastrous quality of Newton's play in 2020 is an empirical fact, not an opinion. And we can't lose sight of it.

Year    Age  Tm Pos No.   G  GS   QBrec  Cmp  Att Cmp%   Yds  TD TD% Int Int% Y/A   Y/G Rate
2020     31 NWE  QB   1  15  15   7-8-0  242  368 65.8  2657   8 2.2  10  2.7 7.2 177.1 82.9

This is just... dogshit. If a rookie QB did this he would be declared a bust.

 

[patman12]

Newton is the QB for next season. Anyone that thinks otherwise is in denial.

Maybe, maybe not. It’s just way too early to say that it is set in stone based on what Belichick has done so far in FA.

 

[XLIX]

Cam's testing positive for Covid is very much part of the conversation. Since Covid brainfog has been proven to be a real phenomenon, it could have played a big part in Cam's inability to progress through his reads fast enough and set himself up to get injured because he dallied with the ball too much.

Well if you really believe that, then the Patriots medical staff are world class f*ckups for not realizing the above and putting a player on the field who wasn't even remotely operating on all cylinders. And despite the ridiculous assertion that "we knew nothing" about Covid in October, fact is we knew about "Covid brain fog" last summer, well before Newton contracted the virus. It wasn't something discovered in the past month or two.

 

[PP2]

I guess its possible, but i don't think 'brain fogg' would be responsible for newton throwing the ball in the dirt or missing a receiver by three feet on a ten yard pass, I think a shoulder injury would.

It's possible that his shoulder injury might have arose from standing in the pocket for too long and letting himself get hit once too often. That would happen if he wasn't able to go through his reads fast enough because of brain fog. Of course, it's all pure speculation on my part, but I'm thinking why not just give him one more shot at it. I do know he's had a history of shoulder injuries.

 

[PP2]

Well if you really believe that, then the Patriots medical staff are world class f*ckups for not realizing the above and putting a player on the field who wasn't even remotely operating on all cylinders. And despite the ridiculous assertion that "we knew nothing" about Covid in October, fact is we knew about "Covid brain fog" last summer, well before Newton contracted the virus. It wasn't something discovered in the past month or two.

I'm sure the Pats organization is right up there with the best at crossing their t's and dotting their i's, but because of the player union, there's only so much they can do. The rest is up to the player's ability to conduct himself once away from the facilities. Obviously Cam didn't.

The concept of a Covid brain fog has been tossed around since then, sure, but AFAIK the body of evidence from studies after studies that have been conducted is only now starting to emerge to prove beyond a doubt that it's a real phenomenon.

 

[luuked]

It's hyperbole to say he never completed a good throw in 2020, sure.

If you want to make the semantic quibble that his throws often looking like garbage wasn't literally his arm, but rather a bunch of other factors that made it so his throws regularly looked awful... sure why not. Not sure how that makes the situation better, though.

If anything it would be MORE comforting if the whole thing could be blamed on a new arm/shoulder injury, because that would create the reasonable hope that the injury could heal and he could throw like an actual NFL starter again. But his problems are some complex matrix of *points fingers at 12 things at once* I dunno, man.

But the overall disastrous quality of Newton's play in 2020 is an empirical fact, not an opinion. And we can't lose sight of it.

Year    Age  Tm Pos No.   G  GS   QBrec  Cmp  Att Cmp%   Yds  TD TD% Int Int% Y/A   Y/G Rate
2020     31 NWE  QB   1  15  15   7-8-0  242  368 65.8  2657   8 2.2  10  2.7 7.2 177.1 82.9

This is just... dogshit. If a rookie QB did this he would be declared a bust.

The thing that people that love their stats sheets ignore is that everything is interconnected.

Does it matter whether he records a thrown TD in the redzone or runs it in ? I am talking about those 12 TDs, 600 yards rushing and 51 first downs you conveniently left away by focusing solely on the passing stats. Passing stats that put him at #14 in completion percentage. Even those miniscule 2,657 passing yards were still good for #24. Those are not semantics but empirical facts that won us games.

Does it matter that the OL was playing musical chairs yet again last year with at times Newton running for his life because Eluemenur was pretending to play tackle ? How about Edelman's injury ? How do you account for the only accomplished receiving option missing 10 games ? Maybe accept that the team by design tried to use his skills as a runner because it gave them a mathematical advantage in terms of blocking at the LOS.

Point being that maybe we should just stop being so simplistic about it and dismiss the context for a pretty bad year. It is not like he had a couple of AP players around him. We will know soon enough what the big picture plan of BB is when it comes to this season and beyond at QB.

 

[Hyped]

you beat me to the punch

Came here to drop that off as well...LOL.

 

[FearNo.1]

242/368 is pretty good. Who was Cam's #1 WR again? Hard to throw for 4k yards when you only get 368 opportunities with limited weapons outside and at TE. How can you not process this information?

Limited time in the system
Covid
Limited options out wide AND at TE
Only threw the ball 368 times in 15 games

No **** his yards/TDs are going to be low. Im not saying Cam isn't PARTLY to blame but how can you look at the above scenario and blame that all on the Qb? That makes 0 sense.

 

[Kdo5]

It's hyperbole to say he never completed a good throw in 2020, sure.

If you want to make the semantic quibble that his throws often looking like garbage wasn't literally his arm, but rather a bunch of other factors that made it so his throws regularly looked awful... sure why not. Not sure how that makes the situation better, though.

If anything it would be MORE comforting if the whole thing could be blamed on a new arm/shoulder injury, because that would create the reasonable hope that the injury could heal and he could throw like an actual NFL starter again. But if his problems are some complex matrix of *points fingers at 12 things at once* I dunno, man.

But the overall disastrous quality of Newton's play in 2020 is an empirical fact, not an opinion. And we can't lose sight of it.

Year    Age  Tm Pos No.   G  GS   QBrec  Cmp  Att Cmp%   Yds  TD TD% Int Int% Y/A   Y/G Rate
2020     31 NWE  QB   1  15  15   7-8-0  242  368 65.8  2657   8 2.2  10  2.7 7.2 177.1 82.9

This is just... dogshit. If a rookie QB did this he would be declared a bust.

Cam is one of the worst starting QBs at this stage. Dont know how people can think otherwise after what we witnessed last season. It wasn’t just Covid and it wasn’t just that he came on late. Only way in which I think he could be competing for the starting job would be if we draft a top tier QB in the draft.

People are really twisting into pretzels to suggest otherwise. He sucked.

 

[BradytoMosstoGronk]

More or less turned Into an excuse making thread for cam. Yes, he had one of his higher completion %, yes he ran for 12 TDs. His 3 best games came against the Jets and Texans, neither of which won more than 4 games. The Seahawks didn't turn their defense around until the end of the year, prior to which were on a historical pace for all horrendous defense.

He didn't have great options, but he didn't make the most of it. How much of covid is to blame is conjecture. He consistently showed poor decision making, pocket awareness and accuracy throwing into tight coverage. His completion percentage looks good because he opted for dump offs or throws where Meyers was streaking wide open.

If we want a quarterback that's going to excel in a precision offense, this guy was never a good decision, that's not his game. I'm prepared to see him start game 1, but he's not a great fit for this offense and he's never going to sniff 2015 Cam production. He's at best a passable fill in, and worst a complete liability. He's not an exciting QB to watch anymore. Being able to run around and rush for TDs doesn't help if you're consistently trailing good opponents. We need a QB, not a former good athlete.

 

[RIpats88]

I don't know. We all watched him throw balls in the dirt, over guys heads, behind receivers, and throw screen passes to the other team. I mean we all have eyes. It was pretty hard to miss.

He did have throws like that but he somehow on the season ended up with 64% completion. If they were all like that he wouldn't have had that completion percentage

Idk, I keep going back to the guy had 23tds and 67% completion percentage in 2018. So, he either dropped off the face of the earth, or the receivers were bad

Judging by Bills free agency he recognizes the receivers were garbage. And if we are giving brady the benefit of 2019 due to the receivers. We have to allow that a percentage of his struggles were the talent around him.

The question is what percentage was the talent and what was his declining skills.

 

[luuked]

More or less turned Into an excuse making thread for cam.

There is a difference between excuses and context. If there wasn't lets talk about all the excuses people make for the horrendous season Brady had in 2019. Receiver options bad ? Excuse. OL not consistent ? Excuse. Him being injured ? EXCUSE. But for some weird reason when it comes to football Jesus people suddenly are able to find the nuance between excuse and context.

You have former QBs evaluating Newton's season that give you the issues in pretty clear strokes:





But I am sure he is also just making excuses even though he is not connected to Cam or the Patriots at all.

All of this is just the continuing mental model of you people trying to find simple answers to complicated questions because thinking is too much work and just looking at 2-3 numbers on PFR already counts as "research".

 

[RIpats88]

More or less turned Into an excuse making thread for cam. Yes, he had one of his higher completion %, yes he ran for 12 TDs. His 3 best games came against the Jets and Texans, neither of which won more than 4 games. The Seahawks didn't turn their defense around until the end of the year, prior to which were on a historical pace for all horrendous defense.

He didn't have great options, but he didn't make the most of it. How much of covid is to blame is conjecture. He consistently showed poor decision making, pocket awareness and accuracy throwing into tight coverage. His completion percentage looks good because he opted for dump offs or throws where Meyers was streaking wide open.

If we want a quarterback that's going to excel in a precision offense, this guy was never a good decision, that's not his game. I'm prepared to see him start game 1, but he's not a great fit for this offense and he's never going to sniff 2015 Cam production. He's at best a passable fill in, and worst a complete liability. He's not an exciting QB to watch anymore. Being able to run around and rush for TDs doesn't help if you're consistently trailing good opponents. We need a QB, not a former good athlete.

Cam newton or whatever veteran we sign this year is always going to be a 1 year stop gap.

Bill is trading up for a top QB IMO. His moves in free agency show this I think