COMPLETE QBS
Disarming ability of Newton, Wilson make them elite
The NFC playoff matchup Sunday of Seattle’s Russell Wilson and Carolina’s Cam Newton conjures, for some, images of breathtakingly gifted quarterbacks making something out of nothing by running with the football, zig-zagging around or bulldozing right over defenders.
And while that might happen at times in Charlotte when the top-seeded Panthers host the Seahawks, who are in pursuit of a third straight Super Bowl appearance, it does not tell the entire story.
For Newton and Wilson, this season has been about their development into reliably productive pocket passers, making them complete quarterbacks with multiple means for disarming defenses.
“Everything that he’s doing right now, he’s done before,” Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin said of Wilson late in the regular season, in comments that just as easily could apply to Newton. “But he’s just doing it at a very high level. He’s always been magnificent outside the pocket. But now he’s doing something that he hasn’t done up to this level inside the pocket.”
There are the numbers. Wilson was the league’s highest-rated passer during the regular season; he had a career-best passer rating of 110.1. The fourth-year pro had his first 4,000-yard passing season. He threw 34 touchdown passes and only eight interceptions. It was 24 touchdown passes and one interception in the final seven games of the regular season.
Newton was the seventh-rated passer in the NFL. He had 35 touchdown passes, 10 interceptions and a 99.4 passer rating. That was by far the best of his five NFL seasons; he’d never had a passer rating above 88.8 in a season before this year. His touchdown passes were a career high and his interceptions were a career low.
But there also are more than the numbers. Newton is the front-runner for the league most valuable player award in part because he did everything that needed to be done for the Panthers, who went 15-1 during the regular season and had a first-round playoff bye.
He got tough yards running with the football. He ran with abandon and seeming disregard for his own well-being when a key first down or a touchdown was needed. He was a vocal and demonstrative team leader, setting a confident tone with his charismatic celebrations of on-field success.
And he also stood in the pocket and delivered throws on time and on target to make a mostly unheralded Carolina passing game more productive than most observers expected or realized.
“I would say he is much more disciplined than he has been,” former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann said recently of Newton. “He has grown into the position. I was a scrambling quarterback. So I can relate. You have to discipline yourself to stay in the pocket and throw the ball. It’s third and six and you see things open up in front of you, you take off. He has shown great discipline, and that has really helped his offense.”
Newton and Wilson are making the transition that many knowledgeable observers say a young quarterback with running skills must make to achieve maximum success and longevity in the pro game. It’s fine, they say, for talented quarterbacks to thrive early by relying on improvisational skills. But over time, the freelancing and the running must gradually give way to staying put in the pocket more often, understanding what the defense is doing, knowing where the ball needs to be and when it needs to be there, and reacting accordingly.
“He was a great athlete playing quarterback,” Theismann said of Newton. “Now he is a great quarterback who also happens to be a great athlete.”
Wilson and Newton are making the transformation from improviser to pocket passer (who also can run when needed) successfully while others such as the Redskins’ Robert Griffin III, Cleveland’s Johnny Manziel and San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick have not, at least not thus far.
“He looks like he does in practice,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said of Wilson following a December victory in Baltimore. “We’re practicing like this and it’s coming through, and I think. . . we’re all together. I think Bev [offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell] is doing a marvelous job of calling it, working it to make sure that the plan fits where we’re having success and continuing to find those ways in the installation of the game plan. . .. The players are coming through magnificently.”