Former Carolina Panthers and New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton has opened up on the past few seasons he’s had in the league and the problems he’s faced. 

Cam Newton, the number 1 overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft has certainly had something of an interesting time during his over decade-long stint in the National Football League, his teams have been inconsistent to say the least, but when he has been on form, he’s been nothing short of phenomenal.

Having started off his career with two losing seasons, he alternated between winning and losing from 2013-2018, but that did include his MVP year in 2015 which saw the Carolina Panthers made it all the way to the Super Bowl off the back of a 15-1 regular season before succumbing to the Denver Broncos.

Throughout his career he has put up 32,382 passing yards to go along with 194 touchdowns through the air,  but it’s not just his arm that has caused teams problems though.

His incredible speed and physicality also made him a very dangerous runner, which has seen him put up  5,628 rushing yards to go along with 75 touchdowns, the latter of which is the record for most rushing yards by a quarterback. 

From star to slump

The past few years though have been something of a disappointment for the former MVP. 2018 and 2019 were curtailed through injury before he was released from the team ahead of the 2020 season, having failed to find a team willing to trade for him.

He wound up with the New England Patriots and despite being the starter for the whole season, wasn’t able to replicate any of the special stuff that had made him one of the best quarterbacks in the league, throwing for just 2,657 yards for 8 touchdowns against 10 interceptions. 

He returned to the Panthers in 2021, but it was more of the same, as he failed to win any of the 5 games that he started following Sam Darnold’s injury.

Taking responsibility

According to Newton, the past few years are all his fault for picking what he perceived to be bad situations. He explained as much on a recent appearance on ‘The Pivot Podcast’ (quoted and cleaned up by Larry Brown Sports):

“I’ll own up to jumping up into some f—ed up situations. The New England experience was a f—ed up situation. I was still learning the offense seven to eight weeks into the season… There was times I’m going to the line and I’m still thinking. Did I know it? Yes. To the degree that I needed to know it in order to show the world that I’m still Cam Newton? No. But I put myself in that situation.“Carolina, I put myself in another f—ed up situation. I was signed on Thursday. I played on Sunday. At what point did you think you were going to be successful? That next week, I started. That’s still under ten days of me being on the team, and you’re still trying to learn an offense… So before I sit up here and allow the narrative to be made that Cam ain’t got it no more, Cam is taking full responsibility in saying that Cam put himself in a f—ed up situation.”

At least he’s modest enough to blame himself rather than anyone else, which is something of a bonus. Let’s just hope that he’s a lot smarter with his next decision when it comes to teams, otherwise what was once a great career could end up fizzling out into nothing.