After a year and a few months, Cam Newton’s time in New England is over.
The veteran quarterback was released on Tuesday ahead of rosters getting trimmed to 53 players. Newton was beat out by Mac Jones, the Patriots’ No. 15 overall pick in the draft. But, that doesn’t mean the move was expected.
Rather, it came as a huge surprise and with not much intel from Bill Belichick afterwards as to why Jones ultimately won the job, Newton leaves New England with there being more questions than answers.
Every indication the past few weeks has been Newton was going to be the starter. The veteran led off every rep during training camp and started all three preseason games, even after missing five days due to a COVID testing "misunderstanding." And even on multiple occasions Belichick himself said Newton was the starter.
While Jones was the better quarterback on the field, the consensus was that Newton was going to be the starter and everyone was trying to figure out why.
Then came Newton’s release on Tuesday, which immediately sent shockwaves around New England and the NFL.
Belichick held a video press conference Wednesday morning, but offered absolutely nothing as to why he went with Jones over Newton.
“That's our decision, and we've had weeks of meetings on all players, so it'd be impossible to rehash everything that happened at that position or any other position, but ultimately there's a lot of factors that are involved, and we made our decisions,” he said when asked why the decision was in the best interest of the team.
Was there a desire to keep him around as a backup?
“I’m not going to go through all the different things with any player on that, so we'll just leave it the way it is and go from there,” Belichick responded.
Not only was there no insight into why Jones won the job and Newton was let go, Belichick didn’t even say anything specific about the former MVP. No thanking him for the last year-plus. No saying he did everything he could. Nothing at all.
“I don't rank them,” Belichick said when asked if releasing Newton was a hard decision. “We make decisions, and then we execute them and go on and take it from there.”
Why did Belichick not even mention his name? Why was there no publicly thanking him for his time? He said more about Michael Bennett on his way out and he reportedly got in a dust-up with his position coach.
Given Belichick’s affinity for Newton over the last year, this was certainly noteworthy.
It was also interesting that Newton didn’t mention anything about the Patriots on his social media channels since his release. As of Wednesday night, there's just been an Instagram story that said not to feel bad for him.
With Newton’s love for the organization and Belichick in the past, it’s a little interesting. A lot of players released by the Patriots thank the organization.
Does this mean something happened over the last few days and things went south in a hurry? It certainly cannot be ruled out.
And then by all accounts the turning point in the competition was when Newton missed three practices last week against the Giants following a COVID testing “misunderstanding.”
All that’s really known is Newton left the area on Saturday, Aug. 21 for a club-approved medical appointment and he received daily COVID tests, but because he’s unvaccinated they needed to be at the facility. Therefore, he was subject to the five-day entry cadence process before returning to the facility Thursday, Sept. 26.
Belichick did say Newton didn’t violate team rules by leaving, but where exactly did he go? Did he not know he needed to be tested at the facility each day? Did the team give him bad information? Did he know he was going to miss some time by leaving?
Newton was scheduled to speak to the media Tuesday where this would have been a major topic, but he obviously did not speak since he was released.
There are still a lot of questions with how that whole thing transpired.
And that sums up the last week for Newton as a member of the Patriots: a lot more questions than answers.
Which we'll likely never find out.