The Ringer NFL Show - The Details of the Cam Newton Deal, and Why This Makes So Much Sense | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

Kevin is joined by Ringer staff writer Tyler Tynes to break down Cam Newton’s signing with the New England Patriots. They talk about why this deal works for everybody involved, what this season could mean for the rest of Cam’s career, and the biggest misconceptions about the star quarterback (0:05). Later, Ringer staff writer Danny Kelly joins the show to talk about Cam’s fantasy outlook and how he changes the Patriots offense (22:10). Host: Kevin Clark Guests: Tyler Tynes and Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark, joined today by two people. One of them will be Danny Kelly later in the show. But first, very excited to welcome in Tyler Tyn, staff writer at the Ringer, host of Cam Chronicles, the new narrative podcast about Cam Newton, and a very well-timed podcast series, I would say. Tyler, welcome to the show. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. Don't worry about Danny Kelly. I want you to know too. We are not worried about Danny Kelly. Don't worry about Danny Kelly. And Kevin, I want you to know. Kevin look horrible too. I'm looking at Kevin right now. He look horrible. The first thing he said was, thank God you're not wearing a suit jacket. And then I told him that I'm doing this just because

only he can see me. And Tyler now has decided to put me on blast for this. I feel, I feel honored to get this appearance from Kevin and not like a tweet suit jacket. It's because we're comfortable with each other. All right, Tyler, this is a signing that I think works for everybody. This was quite frankly a good idea for everybody. $7.5 million. Even if you combined everybody in the Patriots quarterback room. They would still make less in salary in 2020 than 19 quarterbacks make on their own. It's worth $7.5 million to find out what Cam Newton still has left in the tank. If you're replacing two decades of continuity with Tom Brady, this is as good as you can possibly get, having the young quarterback and Jared Stanton develop and see what he has, but really probably relying on

Cam Newton having a bounce back season. I'm curious, Tyler, when you first heard this news, your initial reaction was what? I was mad as shit, Kevin. I'm not going to lie to mad as shit. It was Sunday night. I was enjoying myself. I was laying on my floor, living my life, try and watch Alan Iverson highlights from 2001

just to feel something, Kevin. And, you know, this jerk, Adam Schaefter going to tell me that Cam Newton getting signed. So look, it's a beautiful thing for the sake that, you know, we didn't spend the last year of research and report in and going all around the country for this, this here podcast documentary style on Cam Newton life. you know, great marketing. Appreciate it. Maybe I write to do the check. But otherwise, you know, messed up my Sunday night, man. I ain't liking that.

So obviously you did the pot with Danny and we were able to get to a good spot on Sunday night. Hopefully you can take an off day later in this week to make up for whatever work you had to do on Sunday. I'm curious. Did you see this coming from having conversation with people around him? Did you think, you know, there were so many reports, Tyler, about how he wasn't going to settle for a backup job or he was going to wait for the market to develop. And if a team like the Patriots wasn't going to give him a clear path to a starting job, maybe he was going to wait until training camp and see what happens. Was there a feeling that you thought something was close or did you think he was going to play it right? I mean, just seeing how this developed over the past, let's say, six months since we've known that he was going to depart Carolina, essentially, what was your feeling on the path he was going to take and was this a surprise to you? It's been very hilarious to watch people kind of gesticulate about what they think is going to happen with. Cam Newton in the last few months. And I think if you know anything about Cam, I think if you spent

any time around Cam since January as I have, you know, with his family or whoever, or just kind of see him in his element, the Cam Newton family, the Newton family, they're very smart people. I mean, they did this at Auburn in 2010. They picked the right place in junior college in 2009. You know, he found his way to Carolina, you know, as the first overall pick. And so it seems in so many ways, so many parts of their lives are scripted where Cam Newton is the son. And Cecil Newton, the father is the director of this major motion picture. And so, of course, there were teams kind of fumbling around. Teams where, you know, we're looking into him as far as like where he wanted to go.

But the reality was that Cam ain't fin a move for something that he don't like. Cam's a very, very self-driven person. And so to have on one hand this idea that Cam can sit in his basement blasting Hezekiah Walker gospel music and just getting hype off his own accord for a few months, playing up the role of the villain, that's some beautiful shit. But on the other side of it, why should Cam go? to Chicago and play with Nick Foles and all those guys. Why should Cam go to Mike Mayock, the same guy who told the world in 2010 that there was just something about Cam Newton that

didn't sit right with him as far as his longevity as a franchise quarterback? Why not just sit in your house in the age of coronavirus and wait for a deal to come to you? We all knew there was only one great place for him to go. And sadly, it was the one place we all hate. So I actually don't hate it from a football dork perspective. I think that one of the things about about Belichick is he's thought about everything you could possibly do on a football field. And if anyone can come up with the 10 most interesting things you can possibly do on a football field, it's him. And what do you know he's getting a guy who can do basically anything on the football field when healthy? This is a match made in football heaven. And that's kind of what excites me about

this. I know having the greatest quarterback in history was a good reason not to experiment at the quarterback position. Allegedly the best quarterback in him. history. I watched Nick Holesco football, allegedly, allegedly. Nick Full is in the conversation for you, Mr. Philadelphia. But I think that because of the lack of the greatest quarterback in history, you get to experiment and do different things. You know, I was talking to Rodney Harrison a couple of years ago about Bill Belichick and we were actually talking about Matt Castle. And Rodney Harrison is something I thought about a lot, which was that Bill sees things in players that they don't even see in themselves. And I think that Bill's going to be able to put Cam, if he's healthy, in positions that we didn't even

seeing Carolina. I'm not saying he's going to be better than 2015 season. You know, with the declining health and all that stuff, I think it might be a little hard to do that. But I think in general, I think we're going to see some really interesting schemes. Josh McDaniels has had some success with running quarterback's in the past. In 2018, Pro Football Focus had this. In 2018, 35% of Kim Newton's runs went for first downs. And when he wasn't running an option, which means basically he was, when he was scrambling, 50% of his runs went for first downs. You combine, you combine. You combine, that with decent passing, and that's a real threat. And I think that people have forgotten this. I think the conversation, the perception around Cam Newton has become so confused and weird,

that I think people have forgotten how good he can be when he's healthy. I'm curious, Tyler, being around him, talk to people and know him, how much does he think he has left? How much do you think he has left? And what does that look like, especially in the early part of this season when, you know, there might not be a full training camp, might not be a full preseason. So let's debunk a few things, right? Real quick. You had said, you know, that these, these, these, assumptions about Cam feel weird. And so the way the press kind of operates around the black quarterback is either, you know, racist or it is just very much in the realm of a reality that doesn't actually exist. And so that's A, right? Here's B. Matt Castle got a list Frank

injury before in his life. He came back and he was a pro bowler, right? Let's let's try again. Randall Cunningham tore his ACL in a year where coming back from an ACL injury was unheard of. He came back. He had a great season. Steve McNair was 32, 33 years old, took similar punishment to Cam, pro bowl all the times between those same years. Cam, in the years he was great. 2015, especially, 88% of the offense at one point in time. 77% of the touchdowns are crude at one point in time.

So you're talking about a guy who not only is 31 years old, but it's coming off a shoulder injury where you had, you know, one of his teammates who said, who told me that, you know, his shoulder was literally hanging by a thread in that 2018 season. And so you're coming from a guy from that who can still throw the football. I've watched him throw the football.

He can sling the football. And if you saw at the beginning of the 2019 season as well, the problem wasn't him getting the ball to where it had to go compared to 2018. It was him planting on that foot. I've watched him run up and down a football field in January. I don't see nothing wrong with the foot.

And again, this is on very basically limited knowledge here. But from what I understand is, if it's not the shoulder and it's not the foot, and he's had two years to not get hit where ESPN study showed in 2016 that he was the most hit quarterback in the decade, 300 hit more than Russell Wilson,

and he's now younger than Russell Wilson. There is not an actual good football argument for why 31 teams passed on Cam Newton. There isn't one. You can talk about coronavirus, you can talk about a physical, you can talk about any of these kind of mundane abnormalities. You can even talk about this false idea that Jared Stedham, who's thrown four passes in the NFL and was trashed at Auburn, is going to be better than Cam Newton. All these things are delusional and it's some dumb shit. And so the reality is

Cam Newton is good at football. At the very worst, he's a step worse than he was as an MVP candidate when he was 26 years old. He's the vanguard for a future of black quarterbacks that we would not see without him, a transcendent talent. Why wouldn't you spend $7 million to just figure something out? Easiest thing in the world and 31 teams are idiots. So I agree with you, paying less than 1% of the salary cap to find out if he has anything left. And I think he does. I think is a classic Patriots move.

And I think that there's just no downside. And the upside is just unbelievable. And I think that this will be one of the most fascinating storylines of the season in 2020. I'm curious, Tyler, about the path that you think Cam is going to take over the next couple of years because obviously the Patriots sign a one-year deal. There's a lot of options within that. They could franchise tag him afterwards if he's successful. They could try to trade him if he's successful or they could just keep him around for a while.

Do you think that there's any kind of path in Cam's mind where he wants to say, hey, I want to be with the Patriots for three more years, four more years, try to win a Super Bowl? Do you think he wants to go sort of the big contract route after this year and try to say, hey, I want to be with the Patriots for him. try to spin one solid season to a bigger contract. You think he's playing it by ear? If you were to kind of map out Cam Newton's next few years, assuming he's at least solid this year, what do you think it looks like? I think if you were to ask somebody like his daddy, Cecil Newton, they look at this probably like what they looked at Blinn Jr. College was for 12 months, what they looked at Auburn was for 12 months. And they would call it a business trip. This is a business trip for Cam Newton.

You don't need the money because Carolina Panthers still owe you between $1921 million. You still signed a $103 million deal in 2015. And so the money's not an issue here, right? It's about proving that you're still that guy, that you still got that dog up in you. And so for Cam Newton, this is a one-year prove-it deal, a business trip. We're going to go on up to Foxborough. We're going to torture a horrible division. We're going to make it to the AFC championship game, and we're going to go from there.

That's the bare minimum that I would assume this team can do. Because the thing we've got to understand is he won a national championship at Blynn with nobody on the roster. He won national championship at Auburn playing with mailmen and trashmen. He got to the Super Bowl with not one wide receiver, and one of them was Kelvin Benjamin. He only even play football no more, dog. And so that's the thing. You giving him Josh McDaniels, the best football coach we didn't ever seen in human history, maybe. I mean, I saw Andy Reid do a few things, but maybe, you know what I'm saying? And then you also giving him his best offensive line he's ever had. Let's just wait and see. Assumedly, you know, just for my opinion, I would think, you know,

Cam uses this as a one-year situation based on his history. And then Cam going to take the highest bidder. He going to get his last best contract. He's going to get set up for the rest of his life for him and all his kids and family members. And then he going to do what it do. You know, the last, the thing I would never forget about Cam Newton is the idea that he's willing to bet on himself more than anybody else I've ever seen football or come in contact with. And so what better guy to rise from the ashes for the third time in his life just to give a big fuck you to the rest of the football world that allegedly counted him out. Shit, I'm excited.

Yeah. And, you know, I want to go back to your point earlier because about 31 of the team screwing up, because I think that if I'm an owner today, I walk into my GM's office and say, did you call about Cam Newton? And if the answer is no, I'm upset. Because why not at least call? There's literally no reason. Because if you're looking for a starter, he can be one if he's healthy.

If you have a starter, then you would have the best backup in the league if you signed him for value. If you wanted to. Again, you call and find out. Okay, maybe he didn't want to take a backup job. Well, call and find out. Maybe he was looking for a bigger contract than you to give a backup. Well, call and find out.

I mean, if you didn't explore NFL GMs are obsessed with this idea of no stone unturned. We have to do our due diligence on everything. It's the excuse they say for any exploratory call. If you didn't do your due diligence on Cam Newton, you failed at your job. And I'm not saying it's disqualifying or anything for a GM, but it's a little piece of the puzzle. And it shows you that you're not. sincere about exploring every opportunity for you to to build a competitive football team. Because Cammy was an asset.

Honestly, I would say it is disqualifying as a general manager because here's the thing. I would just say it is because the reality is if you have Cam Newton on the streets and you do not call or make his hotline blink, you have not done your job as a general manager. Point blank simple, right? And the other thing about it becomes this. there is this sort of disqualifying nature when it comes to brash or audacious black people, especially black quarterbacks within the white sports media,

that we assume that they are not allowed to pick where they are going to go. We assume it's off-putting when they don't want to be subservient to the idea of what they should be. The greatest part about Cam Newton, the next generation of black quarterbacks that came subsequently after him is this idea that he don't got to conform to an idea of what we believe a quarterback is. We're seeing this right now. Cam Newton said y'all want me to be a backup fuck y'all Cam Newton said y'all want me to take this little bit of money fuck y'all and then he decided well I'm gonna make it a business trip

I'm gonna do this one deal for the money I already got for all these incentives and I'm gonna try to win and then I'm gonna go back and do it my exact way anybody else who thought I was gonna go otherwise you're kidding yourself it was amazing to me about the perception of him I did a story a couple of years ago I did a couple of stories on cam when he was in trial but I did a couple of stories about him as a person in Carolina

and one of the stories I did was about his propensity to jump in to pick up games whether that's volleyball games or basketball games or football games and talk to people and hang out with them and hang out with the people and the citizens of Charlotte. And Ron Rivera used to talk about the joy that Cam had and he said he reminded him

with Michael Jordan in the sense that he just loves sports so much they would jump in with high school kids or middle school kids or whatever and play and the joy that Rivera described and the happiness that Rivera described, Cam Newton giving off and feeding off of the city was so different from the national perception of Cam Newton at that point. This was 2015, 2016. It was so different. There was no conversation about that outside of Charlotte,

but inside of Charlotte there was. I'm curious, having done this and having seen this journey and having talked to so many people, what you think the biggest misconception about Cam Newton is and that you'll probably tackle in the podcast hour. I think it's a few things, Kevin. I think first and foremost is that he's authentic. I think we see so many different sides of a dude who we automatically assume it should be giving us much more time than he does.

Cam's a very, very private person. Even in the idea that they let us come down to the church and kick it with him and his family to go to some philanthropy efforts to see him play football with kids and do the 707 tournaments and spend a few days in Georgia, you know, he still didn't talk to us that much. He talked to us more than he wanted to, you know what I'm saying? More than, you know, he didn't do a, he has a sit down interview in five years. And so that's the thing here is that he's very, very private. The only thing he really

cares about is football, God and family. I know that sounds cliche, but, and I certainly would challenge it as cliche, but once you get it down, once you go down there, that's literally how he was raised and all he wants to do. He wants to go to church with his kids. He wants to help the city of Atlanta. He wants to play football. And so the idea that you can take take away 33% of what he believes as a part of his pathos is crippling. He said to Chris Paul as much on his Instagram that he felt like, you know, in a boat without a paddle. He didn't know where he was in his career before this. And so I think we truly, when we see so many different sides of Cam, we see him as a recluse and we think he's mysterious while also being this boundless,

bouncing energy, this huge son. But he's authentic. He's giving us what he can give us for whatever reason he's decided he wants to. I think it's that. And I think it's equally that Cam is is on really a self-made journey that so many of these decisions we've seen since he was a five-star prospect at Westlake High School were man-made both in the nightmares and in the dreams,

both in leaving the University of Florida and going to the middle of the desert being 100 meters from a cow pasture trying to figure out what his version of life was and it was football. And so I think the things you'll certainly get when y'all see this podcast on July 13th, when the album drop on July 13th

produced by Isaac Lee, I think what y'all see for real is you'll get a very full picture of who this person is and a person specifically that has decided he don't want to tell us nothing about himself for a very long time. You know, I think it's interesting I had a talk with Dan Mullen

a couple of years ago. How many times you're going to name drop, Kevin? How many times you're going to name drop? Say you met Prince too. I have not met Prince. I did not meet Prince. I only met Dan Mullen, which is not nearly as cool.

Dan Mullen, who was relevant to this story. We talked about this a couple years ago where Josh Daniel came down and visited the University of Florida to learn about the spread. And they were really intrigued by that. And this was 2005.

This was right after the Alex Smith season. They had just started a Florida. Josh Daniels came down. And they integrated a lot of it how they used the middle of the field, not stuff. But they weren't able to use the running game, obviously. And I thought that in rereading those quotes today, I'm going through the notes because I met Dan Mullen and not Prince.

In rereading that, I was thinking about the fact that two years after that meeting, McDaniels uses those principles to build the best offense at that point, NFL history, 2007 Patriots, reinvented the slot position with the first team to go majority shotgun when no NFL team had ever done that. and now it's everywhere. I mean, finding the team that doesn't go shotgun. And two years after that for Florida, they were recruiting Cam Newton. And he fit the offense perfectly.

That obviously didn't work out. I'm sure you'll tackle that at Florida. But I just think it's interesting how the paths cross. And I think this could be a better, this could not be a better football matchup if he's healthy. Best guess, Tyler, what does this season look like for Cam Newton from a number of standpoint? from a health standpoint and from a winning standpoint.

If we actually fin to play football, you know, it's real dumb. But if we actually fin to play football this year, whether it's a shortened season or regular season, I don't think the thing about this, and again, I keep referencing that 2010 Auburn season for a reason. You know, everybody says that Cam took some money. Well, first of all, I hope he did. And second of all, if the alleged amount of money that was given to Cam Newton and his family was what we think it was, $180,000, $200,000 range, that was the cheapest national championship you could ever purchase. The Patriots might have just purchased the cheapest Super Bowl on record.

And so that's the thing here, dog, is that it don't matter what the numbers look like. It matter if Cam get to the AFC championship. We talk so much about completion rating. We talk so much about his QBR in certain years. Talk so much about if Cam could read a defense because they ran, you know, kind of a one technique there with the Panthers where they put somebody in the motion to see if they can move either the linebacker or a corner to read what the defense was, and they thought it was too simplistic back when Cam was, you know, between his rookie and sophomore seasons. And so it doesn't matter about all of those things. What you're going to care about is how he

do it. It's going to be loud. It's going to be fun. It's going to be boisterous. And between that, let's see if they can just make the Super Bowl. Because the sky is the limit. He has done better with much worse. And now he got the best tools possible to get to the top of the charts again. Cam is the best player I've ever seen play football when somebody doubts him. And he got a mountain of doubt. And the last time he had a mountain of doubt, he got to the Super Bowl.

The time before that, he won rookie of the year. And the time before that, he won a national championship. So I don't know if this is the cat that y'all really should be counting out because that's like, you know, a steroid for him. So if Belichick is as smart as we think he is, well, he just pays somebody $7 million to get him back to the Super Bowl. So this should be real, real fun.

We are two weeks away from Cam Chronicles. I'm ready. I hope we can finish it in time. It's some bullshit. Let's be optimistic. We are two weeks away. We're going to finish it. Produced by Isaac Lee with help from Connor and Evans and Noah Mulali.

Tyler Time and staff right at the Ringer, thanks for joining us. Appreciate you, Kevin, North Philly for Evan. I mean, shout out to Isaac Leo to beat. From the Ringer, I'm Tyler R. Times. When I spoke to NFL star Cam Newton in January, his mindset was clear. I want my whole career to be in Charlotte. Cam won't be getting that wish. He was released by the Carolina Panthers in March.

Cam is a complex figure, and my interest in him goes far beyond his exuberant smile and transcendent style of play. Cam broke the glass ceiling in American athletics, ascended to a place in a sport that few black quarterbacks have ever reached, making his fall that much more dramatic. Over the past year, I've traveled to country speaking to coaches and teammates, friends and family, reporters, and even briefly to the man

himself, trying to unravel the enigma that is Cam Newton. I uncovered contradictions at every turn. How can the hardest work on the team be depicted as a bad leader? And how can a franchise icon with the NFL MVP and Super Bowl appearance on his resume be so abruptly cast aside? The Ring your NFL show presents the Cam Chronicles. The series premieres Monday, July 13th. Danny Kelly, staff writer at The Ringer, joins us now to talk scheme and fantasy aspect of this.

Danny, first impression, Cam Newton to the Patriots changes your opinion of the Patriots how. Two reasons, really. I think, you know, I think it makes their passing game more bankable. I think it has a higher ceiling overall than what I was kind of picturing with them going into the season with either Hoyer or so. of under center. I just think it raises the overall ceiling for what that passing game could do. And number two, it really changes the run game a lot too, which I think is a

huge, huge deal for that offense because I think they're probably going to go into this season, wanting to do a balanced approach offensively, you know, pair that with what should be an elite defense going forward. I just think it's the perfect fit

overall. It's a really, really good signing, I think, by the Patriots. healthy. I think it completely sort of changes their outlook in my mind. Obviously, the health is a huge, huge question mark, and that was why he was a free agent. But, I mean, if he comes in this year and his shoulder is feeling good and his foot is feeling good,

then to me, it completely changes the outlook for this team. Yeah, and also $7.5 million is, at some point it stops being a question because $7.5 million is not a lot of money in the NFL. So that's the 1% of salary cap. It's as much as the charges of paying Tyrod Taylor or it's less than the, the dolphins are paying Brian Fitzpatrick.

Like at some point, a flyer is a flyer, and the Patriots are smart for a reason. And I'm not saying that there are probably teams that he wouldn't have gone to for $7.5 million, but I'm just saying right now there's some teams that should feel dumb, because if the worst thing that happens

is that they go their separate ways next spring and this didn't really work out, the Patriots are on the hook for $0.00. Kim didn't go do whatever he wants. There's no comp pick or whatever. If that is the worst case scenario, that's still a pretty good scenario. And that's why I think this is no lose.

And the upside for both parties is really incredible. Because Cam Newton can spin this into a huge contract if he has a good year. And the Patriots can take their elite defense and spin this into a really solid season. So I think it's just a no-brainer for both sides. I'm surprised it hadn't even happened at this point. When you think about the scheme and how they could use him, Danny, what stands out? Well, I think the number one thing, obviously, is his ability as a runner. And, you know, I'm just going to issue this caveat now.

Everything depends on if he's healthy. So I'm just going to say that now. And then we don't have to keep saying it. Yeah, that's assumed. Like, if he doesn't recover from either the Liz Frank injury or if there are complications from the shoulder injury, which we've been told is totally healed. But if, you know, you never know on those sort of significant injuries, whether they can, they can reappear at any point.

So when we're talking about this, this is if he's healthy. and if he's sort of the baseline for what we expect. Okay. Yes. Having said that, you have the board. That's out of the way. That's out of the way. So I think the number one thing for me and the first thing that I thought of is, wow, this changes their ability in the run game a lot.

This is, you know, it's the, it's a mathematical equation up front. He adds the ability to be a runner. It changes what the defense has to do. It changes the number of players. The defense has to account for in the run game because most defenses, the way that the gap situations work out is they just, they just don't really care about the quarterback, you know, they just don't really account for him. And so when you add the quarterback in as a runner,

it really changes just the math and the whole, I guess, schematic strategy for the defense. So I think that's huge. If you look at what Newton's been able to do over his career, it's really, really remarkable. You know,

he's a big guy. He's very fast. He might not be as fast as he used to be, certainly, but he's still really, really difficult to bring down in the open field. I mean, he's a big guy.

and he's going to be, if they scheme it right, a lot of the times he's going to be going up against, you know, if like on a bootleg, you might go up against a cornerback. And that's, that's got to be terrifying as a cornerback trying to tackle Cam Newton.

Seth Galena at PFF had a really interesting article this morning or yesterday. I quoted it in my column, which would be up on nuerg.com shortly. Yeah, it was really interesting because he talked about how, you know, early on his career, Cam was running a lot of like,

you know, power stuff, quarterback keeper, right up the middle. kind of like really punishing his body, I guess, going in the middle of field. And then later on when they had Christian McCaffrey in the mix, they were doing a lot of, you know, fake handoff, bootleg stuff, like play action, bootleg stuff, where it's getting him on the outside in the open field against some of the smaller players. And that, I think, has, you know, a lot of potential this year because the Patriots, I believe, are going to be like a pretty run heavy, play action heavy team. Cam Newton is a pretty good play action passer.

It just makes a lot of sense with their personnel. They drafted two tight ends. They don't have an elite group of receivers. So it makes a lot of sense for them. I think Josh McDaniels is going to want to have a lot more deception in their offense. Because last year, frankly, it was pretty clear whenever they were going to run the ball. If Sony Michelle's in there, like 80-something percent of the time, they're going to run the ball. So this year going forward, if you can,

got two tight-end sets. They can pass. They can run. They can do bootlegs. They can do a lot of different things. I think Cam Newton adds a lot to that. And in addition to that, I just think overall on third downs and in the red zone, he changes everything. You know, those are two huge areas that he can really, really add a lot because of what he can do with his legs. You know, any third down situation where it's middle or short yardage, he becomes a huge factor. Any red zone, he's probably the best red zone player of his generation, honestly. You know, just what he's able to do, both passing and running the ball, I think is really, really exciting for what the Patriots are going to do inside the 10-yard line, inside the 5-yard line. So those are the first few things that come into mind with his ability to run.

Do you remember that playoff game where Sony and Michelle was 100-percent tell, was against the charges, 100% tell they were going to run? And the Chargers never, never caught up with that. They never figured that out. They were just passing to James White out of the backfield and running with Sony-Michel. Anyway, Gus Bradley, tough scene. I wasn't going to call him out, but yeah. If you were to, and that was a week after they were the first team to sort of stymie Lamar Jackson, too. So bizarre.

Yeah, I don't know. Okay, so if you were to single out a couple people, maybe the answer is no one. But if you were to single out a couple of people in the Patriots offense, that this would help. Not having Jared Sten and be the quarterback, obviously the run game being. accentuated, is there anybody you circle and you say, hey, this is really going to open it up for blank? From a football point of view, it should be helpful for Sony Michelle just because having Cam Newton, if they run, say they run out of shotgun and they're doing a lot of like read option style mesh point things where he's holding a defensive end on the back side of the play, that's

just going to help Sony Michelle pick up yards between the 20s. From a fantasy point of view, I don't think it helps Sony Michelle because I think Cam Newton is, I mean, Sony was already not getting enough of the most valuable types of carries and catches in the fantasy world. Now I think Cam Newton could potentially start stealing a lot of his goal line work. So that I don't think from a fantasy point of view

it helps Sony Michelle, but it does help him from just pure football between the 20s. Hopefully he could have a little more efficiency this year as a runner. Just because you're taking one guy out of the equation. You're freezing him. Cam's essentially blocking that defense event. And then as far as the receivers go,

I don't know if it necessarily raises Julian Edelman's, you know, ability to be a huge fantasy factor. I think I probably would have him right around the same level. But I'm certainly more confident that I would say he's probably happy that he's getting a guy like Cam, veteran, you know, experienced guy. It's very difficult to replace the chemistry and timing and just overall trust factor that that Edelman had with Brady. But, you know, Cam's been there. He's a veteran experienced guy. He's capable of stepping up in the pocket doing all that stuff. So I think, you know, from a football point of view, that certainly probably helps that. But I don't know if they're necessarily going to be a

really, really pass heavy team. Again, I kind of think that the Patriots identity will be sort of slow down and run the ball and, you know, let their defense do a lot of lifting and things like that. The one guy who I think has a higher ceiling now than maybe I thought before the season is Nikiel Harry coming off of, you know, missed most of his rookie season, didn't really impress a whole lot there were some definite, definite flashes here and there. But, you know, if you look at the receivers that Cam Newton has had kind of in his career, Calvin Benjamin, Devin Funches, these are guys that are big bodied jump ball type players that don't necessarily separate.

And Cam Newton made those guys fantasy factors and football factors. He shows the ability to throw into tight windows. Some quarterbacks just straight up refuse to do that. You know, they need guys that are going to be, you know, getting open and things like that. don't think Cam is that kind of guy. So schematically and football wise, that fits pretty well, I think, with Nikkeel Harry. So I think he's

a kind of, you know, if you're talking fantasy, he's a late round pick that has kind of a lot of interesting upside just because of that skill set in Cam's history with those types of receivers. So both from a football point of view, overall, I just think it's one of those things where, you know, their ceiling is

higher now with Cam Newton under center. Rising Tide raises all ships type idea. I think Nikiel Harry, suddenly becomes one of the more interesting receivers on that team just because, like I said, that precedent that Cam has of throwing to those big body receivers. So let's say hypothetically there was a writing and podcasting company that had done a podcast in which we went through all the contenders late last week, that we were released this week before the Cam Newton signing and that is coming out Thursday

and which we ranked tiers of contenders and that I was higher on the Patriots than the other two people were and one of them was you. So let's say hypothetically that happened. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Knowing what we know now, you think of the Patriots chances in the AFC East and the in the AFC picture as what? I think this changes everything based on.

So just to give you a sneak preview about that hypothetical discussion, my, my reservations about the Patriots were that there were just too many question marks for both their passing game and running game. going forward. I think their defense is going to be really solid. We knew that. But there was multiple, multiple question marks on offense, run game, passing game. And a lot of that had to do with, you know, the fact that we didn't really know what the situation was under center. There's still question marks. I would still put them in sort of that tier where they need a few good things to go right for them to be, I think, a Super Bowl team. Number one, they need Cam to be healthy. Number two,

they need the run game to take a jump because I think, you know, losing Dante's Karenekea, you know, there's a factor there that we don't really know how big of a deal that's going to be. But that said, I think I squarely put them in that, in that category now just because I think, you know, if all things, if those things fall right, if Cam Newton gets back to the guy we saw maybe like when he was healthy in 2018, I think this defense is definitely good enough to make them a Super Bowl contender. So, yeah, it changes the entire conversation. And you guys will hear this conversation later this week, but just keep that caveat in mind. I think there was just so many huge, huge question marks with both the run game and the past game. I think Newton

has the potential to solve both those things. I think he's going to make the run game a lot better, which is another really big factor. So yeah, it changes my whole sort of, I guess, opinion on what the Patriots can do this year. So MGM just put this out, and I found it interesting that Cam Newton is now in the top 10 for MVP odds at plus 2,500, which I think is actually a little much. I mean, that's ahead of Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan, significantly ahead of Jimmy Garoppolo,

Kirk Cousins, Ben Rothesberger, significantly ahead of. Oh, that's interesting. Derek Henry and Ryan Tannahill, Randanel plus 7,000. It's just golf is plus 7,000. I just, I don't know.

That might be a little bit overshooting it, but I think, you know, Mike Sando talked to some NFL executives last night and put it up on the athletic.com. today and said that, and that executive said that they think he's healthy and he's a top 10 quarterback. And if he is fully healthy and none of us know, none of us has seen him work out, although Tower Times, who was just on with us, has seen him throw a ball. But if he is healthy, there's an argument for that. I think that with reduced preseason, with reduced training camp,

I think there's the case to be made that he might start a little bit slow. But on the other hand, if he's fully healthy, he's just going to run through people and their defenses aren't going to be ready. They're going to have limited training camp. They're going to have limited preseason too. So he could just be able to catch them flat-footed if he's, if he's ready to go and if defenses are not. And I think that trying to gauge what's going to happen after the COVID off season is a little bit misguided. But I think if he's healthy, if he's healthy, again, there's that caveat. I mean, he's, I would assume tackling would be harder to come by early in the season because it normally is with limited training camp. But if it's even more limited than

training camp. That's less tackling technique. That's, you know, players that didn't get the full slate of preseason. That's rosters are not maximized. That's the one thing I think that's, that's important to note here is that most NFL teams rosters are not going to be as good as they normally are because, A, no tryouts, no rookie mini camps, no, as we say, Malcolm Butler is basically found a rookie minicamp years ago. And they just invited him to that and he stuck. And those, there are those success stories all the time. There's none of those this year because there's no in-person workouts. There's no ability to work guys out if they're on the street right now and churned through

the roster. And there will be not a full slate, probably at preseason games or training camp to find your best 53. And so you combine all of those things. I'm not saying that's going to be a huge factor in Camden and success, but I'm just saying that this is going to be a weird year. and if you have pure talent, you win. Good ideas win.

And this is a good football idea. Good players win. Cam Newton is a good football player of healthy. And I'm just thinking that if things break right, this could be a really, really good signing. And if things break wrong, who cares?

$7.5 million. That's a rounding error in the salary cap. I mean, that's the thing is there's, there's really no downside because the downside is like they just go along with whatever one kind of thought the plan was originally, which was to, you know,

develop Jared Stidham and have... And this doesn't, by the way, this isn't preclude them from still developing Jared Stidham. Right. They're not going to call Jared Stim and say... Yeah, it's just a lot of time frame. They might,

they're not going to call Jared Stim and say, we're going to ask you to stop working out and getting better. Right. We're going to press pause on that. No, he can still, who knows if he was ready this year, but giving him more time to develop is a good thing.

It's not like he was some Uber prospect when we needed to see the field right now. There were huge questions about him. That's the other thing. where people like, well, Cam Newton's healths are so unknown, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, Jared Stereb's never started a game. So all of a sudden, he's got no unknowns and Cam Newton does. I mean, there's a lot of question marks.

When you're replacing the best quarterback of all time after two decades of continuity, there are question marks. You cannot do that perfectly. You have to take chances. Maximizing your opportunities in the quarterback room is important. If Brian Hoyer, you're there too. You're still spending almost no money for that quarterback room. and I just think it's a really good option and I like the Patriots now.

And I was higher on them in the contenders episode than you guys were. But I think that they're still, you know, it's hard for me to say if they're going to win the AFC East right now. I mean, I'm kind of, it's only been, what, 12, 14 hours since the signing. I need to see a little bit more. Right. But they're more in the conversation than they will. were yesterday at 2 p.m. The other thing that,

yeah, and I agree with you, the other thing that makes me more confident too is, you know, with the Patriots, they were always the most nimble team schematically, you know,

going back years, really, going back the last two decades, they've always been so nimble and able to change their strategy, change their schemes, really, like from not only from game to game,

but like play to play, they just have that ability to, for lack of, like for not that this is a cliche, but just like out coach other teams, you know? And so they're one team who I really trust to utilize Cam

correctly, you know what I mean? Like they're going to come in with a very good plan for how to get the best out of Cam Newton. And I don't think you can necessarily say that for every team. Oh, well, you could, you probably couldn't say that for the majority of teams probably. And so, you know, I think it's a perfect lining spot.

That's, I'm sure why, you know, Newton didn't have a ton of options. in terms of the ability to come in immediately and be like the starter anymore. Like that kind of passed him up in the start of free agency. The injuries certainly played a big role in that. But I think Cam knew like this is a good opportunity for him to like rehabilitate his his career, you know, after having all those injuries. And this is a great, great place to do the prove it year because they're going to put him in a good position.

Josh Daniels is going to think up some really cool stuff that they can do with him. and I think overall it's just like they're going to they're going to tailor an offense that really makes sense for him so it gets like a win-win for both the Patriots and for Newton. Anything else in your notes that you need to dump out? From a fantasy point of view, you know, we, I mentioned some of the other skill players on the team, but I also want to just add in like Newton has a potential to be a top 10 quarterback this year, which is kind of like it's a little baffling to talk about because he was not even necessarily going to be a starter.

We didn't really know if he's going to be a starter. We still don't. There's still, I guess, a sliver of doubt that he will be the starter. But he was looking like a really great sort of like later round quarterback flyer because, you know, his rushing ability, you know, just gives him the chance to be that top 10 quarterback. You know, the rushing, the rushing upside that that quarterbacks bring is like a cheat code in fantasy football. It's the Konami code in fantasy football. It's how guys consistently add to their bottom line every week. And so, you know, Newton's consistently in his career been a top 10, top eight finishing

quarterback when he's been healthy. So I think this is kind of like a really cool opportunity to grab. I'm not going to compare into Lamar Jackson last year where Lamar Jackson was the overall top quarterback, but he's a late round guy that could really be a big factor for your fantasy team. So that was the other thing I just wanted to add into the fantasy discussion. What game did you use the Konami code on the most? Dude, I didn't even really play

those kind of video games growing up. I was like, I didn't really get into video games until like Halo came out. I kind of got out of them around that time. Yeah, I was a Super Mario Bros. And, um, Mario Kart. That was like, those are my two jams growing up.

And then basically skipped like a whole generation of games. And then I did Halo. I was like in college, which I guess is, aging me. But yeah, a big Halo guy. And I kind of skipped all those like contra and all that stuff. I bought the first non-sports video

game that I bought in like probably 15 years during quarantine. And I didn't like it. Well, you're going to tell us what it is? I don't want to. He was Red Dead Red Dead Redemption too. I was red dead redemption too.

I'm sure it's a great game. I'm sure it's a great game. And it was. Everybody I know who plays it loves it. Yeah. It's just not my thing. I'd rather just do other stuff. That's all. That's where I am now, too. I got to think, I am, I'm not opposed to video games.

I just, there are things I'd rather do. That's all. I respect all hobbies. Okay, Danny Kelly. Thank you for joining us. Thank you.