NFL 2021: Cam Storylines

It’s time for me to throw in the towel. I give up. I concede. I surrender.

When Cam Newton entered the NFL back in 2011, I’ll admit to not being a fan. He was coming off a national championship and a Heisman Trophy at Auburn and I was bothered by the way he was able to skate through without NCAA punishment, despite compelling evidence of shenanigans with his father and alleged demands for money. I was wearing my tinfoil hat and felt strongly that the NCAA wanted to make sure that an SEC team wouldn’t be hindered in the middle of a title run.

I was a silly person back then. My thoughts on college athletes making money have changed greatly since.

But then he landed in the pros and from the second he took his first regular season snap with the Panthers, my tune changed real fast. I was smitten with the power of his arm, his impressive defensive end-like physique. His unbridled joy when he was running in the open field. I liked his commercials. I admired his sense of style. He broke Peyton Manning’s rookie passing record. He threw for more than 4,000 yards and was named rookie of the year.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

I was all in. So much so that I made a prediction: Cam Newton would one day hoist the Lombardi Trophy. And for a while, things looked great. He snagged a couple Pro Bowl nods and in 2015 came his finest achievement: being named NFL MVP and leading Carolina to a Super Bowl appearance.

And on that fateful Sunday, the bottom started to drop out. The Panthers lost that Super Bowl to the Broncos and Cam had a bad moment in the fourth quarter when it appeared that he hesitated to fall on a fumble. He faced some criticism for it, but all signs pointed to him continuing to pulverize opponents the following season.

That didn’t happen. His passer rating went from 99.4 in 2015 to 75.8 in 2016. He completed just 52.9 percent of his throws, was briefly benched in one game for a dress code violation and the Panthers went from 15-1 to 6-10.

After a 2017 season that saw Cam lead the Panthers back to the playoffs, injuries marred his 2018 and 2019 campaigns and eventually led the team to release him. It looked like my prediction had fallen apart at the seams, but there was a glimmer of hope when Newton was signed by the Patriots.

Surely Bill Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels could breathe new life into him and spark him into MVP form! Perhaps he will one day hold the championship trophy above his head, right? Sigh, no. Cam got COVID-19 and while he did have some bright moments under center in New England, he finished with 8 touchdown passes compared to 10 interceptions and the Patriots missed the playoffs with a 7-9 record.

And just a few days ago, the Cam Newton era under Belichick ended when the team released him, opting instead to go with rookie quarterback Mac Jones. And with that, I must admit that I failed as a prognosticator in this case. Sure, he’s only 32 years old, but the odds of Newton finding another team that’s willing to use him as a starter aren’t good. If I’m wrong, nobody will be happier than yours truly. But I don’t see it happening.

GRABBING THE SPOTLIGHT

Speaking of Mac Jones, he was the most interesting thing to come out of the preseason, which has officially become useless. The games were never a great watch to begin with, but you had a chance of at least watching a couple series with the first-string guys each week. But then Rams coach Sean McVay came along and refused to play his starters at all in games that don’t count and wouldn’t you know it, his teams didn’t skip a beat when the regular season came around. So a lot of other teams started to follow suit.

Anyway, Jones was a first-round selection, but there were three other quarterbacks who were taken with the draft’s first three picks and the nation’s attention pointed in their direction, as many people figured Jones would be behind Cam Newton holding a clipboard for a season or two.

Nah, dude. The rookie came out blazing, taking command of the huddle, carving up opponents in joint practices and definitely looking the part during preseason action. He did so well that the former MVP once in front of him on the depth chart is now looking for work.

BETTER LEFT UNSAID

Any decent lawyer will tell you that it’s important to know what to say in a courtroom. They’ll also say that it’s just as critical to know what to keep to yourself. Which brings us to Urban Meyer. I didn’t react with the scorn that some in the media showed when he was hired by the Jaguars. It’s true that longtime college coaches have a spotty record, at best, when it comes to having success in the NFL. For every Pete Carroll, there’s a graveyard full of names like Bobby Petrino, Steve Spurrier and many more.

And there are going to be some bumps in the road, which is what happened this week when Meyer admitted that he took the vaccination status of players into consideration while making his final roster cuts. On its face, that makes sense. If you have two players on the bubble and with all things being equal, one can’t be blamed for going with a vaccinated player over an unvaccinated one, right? There’s too much at stake during the season to mess around with that.

There’s one problem: The league forbids teams from cutting a player solely due to their vaccination status. And that prompted the NFLPA to open an investigation into the matter.

Whoops.

Hey, coach! There’s nothing with what you did. But as your friend and legal counsel, you should have clammed up about it. Information like that is on a need-to-know basis. And literally nobody needs to know about that.

TO JAB, OR NOT TO JAB?

Speaking of the coronavirus, the NFL made headlines a few months ago when they presented their COVID guidelines, which in the end, aren’t really different from what went down in 2020. However, the league is making it clear that they won’t mess around with teams that have unvaccinated players. You can expect to have some games shift around in 2021, but they won’t be extending the regular season by one day. So if an alternate date can’t be found, forfeits are in order.

How would you like to be that guy that cost your team a game? Can’t be comfortable in the locker room.

So far, the only teams with 100 percent of their players vaccinated are the Buccaneers and Falcons. A lot of other teams are likely close to that, but there are holdouts in every locker room. Cole Beasley is defiant. Kirk Cousins has an obsession with plexiglass. Carson Wentz says his mindset on vaccines is a “fluid process,” and that the league’s COVID protocol “keeps me up at night.” Wentz’s Colts teammate Darius Leonard is still waiting for more information.

Who knows when these grown men will change their minds, if they do at all. And I do acknowledge that this is a free country and all that, but at some point, someone is going to step in it and negatively affect their team. And you know what? That’s on them.

WHAT’S THE CHATTER?

I did not know that: The Jaguars placed receiver Tavon Austin on the injured reserve with a quadriceps injury. He’ll miss a few weeks and that’s a bummer. It also completely got past me that he’s now in Jacksonville. Remember when he was a surprise first-round pick back in 2013? Since starting with the Rams, he’s had stops with the Cowboys, Niners and Packers. He never quite got to the mountaintop, but at least he’s still in the league.

Smart money? Someone placed a $1,000 bet that Mike McCarthy will win the coach of the year award. If that happens, the bettor will win $30,000. One day I hope to have that kind of disposable income to spend that much on a lark. Truth be told, you never know which coach will take the hardware every year. Football is a strange game. A few lucky bounces and Mikey Mac might just win someone big money.

Hope this works: Fans will be returning to NFL stadiums en masse this season. Some teams, like the Raiders, will require proof of vaccination for admittance. Others, like the Rams, aren’t going that far but will require fans to wear masks, regardless of their vaccine status. Nothing would make me happier than going to a game this fall, but I still feel skittish about it. I went to a comedy show at an indoor club a couple weeks ago and people weren’t masked while sitting. And I didn’t feel comfortable about it, even though I did it anyway. I’m not sure how I’d feel about being surrounded by 70,000 people, even in a semi-outdoor facility.

Now, that’s unfortunate: I wasn’t watching the Ravens game when running back J.K. Dobbins went down with a season-ending knee injury, but my Twitter feed did light up when that happened. And head coach John Harbaugh is taking some heat for playing Dobbins in the preseason finale and acknowledged that it’s a “fair question.” I have to agree somewhat with the detractors here. It’s true, knee injuries are usually a freak occurrence and can happen at any time, but it must burn even more to have it happen before the season even starts. Sigh.

See you next week!