For about six days and 21 hours per week, Cam Newton is just so gosh darn likeable.
He’s affable, must-listen radio during his weekly interviews with The Greg Hill Show on WEEI.
His energy is legendary, surpassed maybe only by his leadership and work ethic. At least that’s how his freshly and humorously nicknamed teammates and coaches tell it.
No. 1 seemingly says and does all the right things…
Then, the three hours of on-field game action arrive and rooting for Newton as the Patriots starting quarterback and the successor to Tom Brady becomes damn near impossible as the incomplete passes and three-and-out drives pile up.
New England’s latest ugly loss, Monday night’s embarrassing 38-9 blowout by Josh Allen’s blossoming Bills, was in many ways a microcosm of Newton’s one and maybe only season in Foxborough.
He completed just five of 10 passes for 34 yards before being benched yet again, this time in the third quarter, replaced by the guy everyone seemingly wants to see get a shot in second-year backup Jarrett Stidham.
Newton just couldn’t get his band of lackluster pass catchers going yet again, New England now having gone three straight games without a passing touchdown.
Of course Newton was also responsible for the Patriots only touchdown, a 9-yard scramble in the second quarter for his 12th rushing score of the year, tying Steve Grogan’s franchise record.
After standing on the Gillette sideline with a towel over his head and obvious displeasure on his face while watching Stidham complete just four of 11 passes for a mere 44 yards, Newton again was honest and frank in regards to his situation.
A few days after going to Instagram to express his desire to be the Patriots starting quarterback moving forward and accepting the challenge of the job, Newton was asked how he thought what he’s called a “job interview” this season is going with one week left on his current contract, essentially a barely $1 million deal he got only after dangling seemingly unwanted in free agency for 86 days last spring.
“I don’t care about no contract,” Newton said. “I just want to win.”
Newton described the feeling after the latest ugly loss as “disappointing,” noting “I'd be the first to say that I need to get better.”
But can he be better? Is there any reason to believe the guy who stepped up in the pocket on third down under pressure against the Bills only to throw a one-hopper at the feet of a wide open N’Keal Harry will show improvement moving forward worthy of future investment, both in terms of time and money?
“It's extremely frustrating, knowing what you're capable of, having belief in yourself, it's just not showing when it counts the most,” Newton declared.
Even Stidham, while making it clear that he would love the chance to be the starter in the season finale against the Jets and prepare as such this week in practice, noted that the guy he’s trying to surpass for playing time is far from the only problem with a Patriots passing attack that would have to improve greatly to even be described as sputtering or fledgling.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily one thing,” Stidham said.
But on the field, Newton is simply and definitively part of the problem.
Through 14 starts – now a 6-8 record in that role – Newton has just five touchdown passes in 338 pass attempts. His 1.5 touchdown percentage is the worst in the NFL in 25 years. That’s right, a quarter century according to NFL Network.
The losses, the incompletions, the lack of touchdowns are all hard to ignore.
But it’s also hard to ignore the way Bill Belichick has defended his quarterback and stood by him.
“Cam did a good job for us. I mean, that wasn't the problem,” Belichick declared.”
Though the reasons for that loyalty remain debatable, contextual clarity may have come when ESPN’s Monday Night Football crew discusses Newton’s daily schedule which includes getting up at 4:20 in the morning for work days that often don’t get him back into bed until 11:30 at night.
“That's been my schedule for 90-percent of the time I've been here. So you can kind of understand the frustration I do have when I don't have the outcome because I'm sacrificing so much,” Newton explained. “(You are) talking to a person who ain't seen his kids in three months. Obviously the contract is what it is. Submitting myself to this team is something I've been doing since day one. Being accessible. Yeah, it's frustrating. It makes you mad. It makes you angry knowing that to be a trusted teammate you first have to submit to authority and submit to what the coaches are asking you to do. I feel like I have done that. I'm not in the place of blame. I'm more or less venting right now because, yeah, I've sacrificed so much this year. I mean, it hurts when you have the outing that you have tonight, just to go home, then start it over for a whole 'nother week.”
It’s admirable dedication as well as understandable frustration.
It’s similar to what fans of Patriot Nation have felt all season. After not having to spend a second thinking about the QB spot for nearly 20 years, they want to embrace Newton as the smiling leader of their team, a guy who wants nothing more to rebuild his once MVP-caliber career in New England under Belichick to return the Patriots to game day glory.
But it’s not happening. There have been too many games and too many performances like Monday night’s.
Days when Newton strolls to work early in his snazziest, steeziest (as he would describe it) game day attire with confidence and hope only to see it fade away in the fire of the latest week’s competition.
Newton wants to be the Patriots starting quarterback for Week 17 and beyond.
Most Patriots fans seemingly wanted Newton to be their starting quarterback for so long this season.
Unfortunately, it’s just not working out.
And at this point there is no reason to believe that it ever will.
It really is too bad.
But it also is what it is.
