The more I think about it, the more I think it is in the Patriots best interest to cut or trade Cam Newton ASAP. As for why...
1) You don't want to risk the possibility of Mac not playing this season. The only way to do that is to give him the starting job week 1. Then you don't need to worry about 'something happening which opens the door' for him. It probably will happen, but we don't KNOW it will.
2) Cam will not take kindly to being a back up. I'm getting the impression he was likely tolds things, or had things alluded to him in private. How long before he ask to be traded or cut? That will be another distraction that will just pile on to things, which you don't need if you are getting Mac ready to start.
3) Let's say you keep Cam, even if he ask to be traded. He has a following in that locker room. You don't want to split it up and have one side be on Cams and the other side on Mac's. Particularly while Mac is busy getting use to the NFL.
The only way to avoid any issues with keeping Cam is if he simply tips his hat to Mac and fully embraces the mentor role, which i don't see as happening. Cutting/trading him will cause issues too, but at least things will be final and not linger. As for the possibility of doing this and Mac getting hurt, and it costing you a playoff appearance, that doesn't matter in my mind. The development of Mac is a bigger concern than this year. Just how it is when QBs enter the discussion.
One thing that struck me when we signed Cam for this season (remember, he was a FA with zero interest for quite a while with end of season rumors suggesting the Pats had decided to move on) was that his new contract shows
Cam can be easily cut. IMO this was no accident, the team always knew they wanted to be able to have a way to move on without any pain for whatever reason, and yes, part of this had to be the turmoil the team experienced with Cam catching COVID during the season, despite all the mumbling about treating it just like another injury yada yada.
I recall BB's presser in the middle of the deflategate crisis where he said he spent hours learning everything one could learn about how the ball gets prepared, what the rules are around the ball pressure, etc --
can we REALLY believe BB has not done a deep dive on COVID in general and on the team losing one or more key starters during the season due to COVID? And can we REALLY believe the outcome of such a deep dive is that the gain of keeping Cam is not worth the potential pain of the season blowing up if Cam is on our roster and catches COVID again due to not being vaxxed?
I'm genuinely asking, because I genuinely don't know, but I can't convince myself that Cam is worth the risk.
Another question, based on what Phil Perry said on his podcast with Curran:
What is more important, winning this season, OR sorting out the QB position as soon as possible?
Phil asked the question already knowing what he'd say, that sorting out the QB position is more important. Thing is, we see what we like from Mac, but it won't matter till we see him do it in real games back to back. It *might* turn out that he has some flaw in his game that the league picks up on or something else unexpected comes up and the team decides he just isn't the long term answer. You gotta know that sooner rather than later so you can use the next off season to pivot.
Best case Cam comes in and kicks ass and we go high into the playoffs and guess what, he's on a 1 year deal, someone might want to pay big for him, we get nothing out of it but what we have now, Mac Jones, and it's a year later so one year of cheap salary burned and we'd still need to see what we have, and now we're doing that with
bad draft position. We put Mac in now, either he plays well and in the off season we build the team around him, or for whatever reason we need to pivot and we're heading in a different direction with good draft position.
Yet both suspected BB didn't see it this way, the thing that matters to BB is winning games, and they surmise BB thinks Cam gives him the best chance to do that now.
As above, I think this little episode with Cam may force them to reconsider if the things he's doing to help the team are worth the potential issues that an unvaxxed player may cause over 17 games and the playoffs.
