Cam Newton has rightly garnered plenty of praise for the way he’s led the Patriots offense through the first two weeks of his New England career.
He paced a rushing attack that ran to victory over the Dolphins on opening day and then kept pace with Russell Wilson in an aerial shootout in Seattle that came up just shy of victory.
But obviously ever single play that Newton and his teammates have made has begun with the work of the New England offense line. The veteran unit has been more than solid in the first two weeks, including third-year former first-round pick Isaiah Wynn settling into his role at left tackle.
After missing his first season to injury and seeing his second year derailed a bit by another stint on IR, Wynn played at a high level over the second half of last season and that momentum has continued into the first couple weeks of 2020. While he’s been around for a while, it’s worth noting that Sunday’s game against the Raiders will be just his 12th NFL start, including postseason. So while Wynn’s getting the job done now, there is still clearly room for positive growth based on ever-increasing comfort and experience.
Bill Belichick has taken note, as the coach expressed praise for his young blindside leader during a Wednesday morning video call with local reporters.
“Isaiah’s a good player, does a lot of things well,” Belichick said. “He’s a very athletic player with very good playing strength and leverage. He’s got good feet. He’s a smart kid. He really takes well to coaching and making adjustments and those kinds of things. So, it’s good to have him out there and hopefully he can continue his development. He and Joe [Thuney, left guard] have played together now and have a good feel for each other there and work together well on a lot of different combinations and adjustments and things like that they have to make. Those two guys really help each other. They’re both good players and they help each other as well.”
In turn, they’ve helped Newton and the Patriots get the job done on offense at a high level in a variety of ways through the first two weeks of 2020 action.
