Don’t count Stidham out
Newton the favorite but not the only Auburn option
Don’t demand a refund for that No. 4 Patriots jersey just yet. Don’t stuff your Jarrett Stidham shirt in the drawer with the rest of those in tatters, worn only when you get around to slapping yet another fresh coat of paint over the crayon marks on the den wall. Don’t bury it with Jimmy Garoppolo’s No. 10 Pats jersey simply because Cam Newton has dislodged Stidham as the favorite to become Tom Brady’s first successor.
By the way, that title, Tom Brady’s first successor, sounds more daunting than it actually is. The winner of the training camp Auburn duel between Newton, the dual-threat veteran favorite, and Stidham, the crazy-accurate upstart, won’t be replacing the man who built the legend. He’ll be replacing what’s left of the quarterback who won six Super Bowls and last season clearly had grown weary of trying to make the Patriots’ offense hum without tight end Rob Gronkowski and a standout receiver to complement Julian Edelman.
The whole “Brady’s successor” angle is one of those outside, intangible issues head coach Bill Belichick has a way of keeping from penetrating the Foxboro Fortress anyway.
Brady’s successor doesn’t need to turn the scoreboard into a Chiefs-like fireworks show.
The Patriots’ offense had the 15th-best yards-per-game (354.0) total in the NFL last season, and finished in a three-way tie for third-fewest turnovers (15). The turnover-tidiness will be tougher to duplicate than the yardage. If Stidham can give Belichick reason to believe his accuracy can enable him to duplicate Brady’s ball security, he’ll give the coach something to think about when deciding which way to go to start the season.
If and when Belichick says that Newton and Stidham will compete for the starting job, that will ring more true than talking up a Stidham-Brian Hoyer derby before Newton signed. Why? Newton and Stidham both have NFL starting-quarterback talent and Hoyer does not.
Alarmists might read the Newton signing as evidence that Belichick isn’t sold on Stidham. Nonsense. If that were the case, why would Belichick risk going into the season with him as the best option by letting Newton test the market to see if he could get better than backup money?
Belichick correctly read the market for Newton and now doesn’t have to worry that if his starter suffers an injury, the dropoff to the backup would turn the Patriots into a non-contender in the AFC East.
Newton has missed 16 of his past 18 games with foot and shoulder injuries. Still, he’s too productive a runner to subtract that value from his game, which makes him an injury risk. So there’s a good chance that Stidham will have ample chance to show his NFL readiness in games. If he makes the most of an injurycreated opportunity, even a short one, Newton could become the latest athlete to fill Wally Pip’s shoes until he moves onto his next team.
As a runner, Stidham is no Bobby Douglass or Randall Cunningham, no Steve Young or Lamar Jackson, no Michael Vick or Newton, but he’s no Brady either. Stidham averaged 5.2 yards per rush on his 17 attempts in his rookie preseason. Many of the designed quarterback running plays that fit Newton wouldn’t make sense for Stidham, but mixing in QB runs would not be out of the question.
Again, signing Newton doesn’t mean Belichick doesn’t believe in Stidham, but there is merit to thinking it might mean he thinks another year of seasoning would help him more than it would hurt him. But if Stidham blows Belichick’s mind with a killer camp, there’s no reason to think Belichick wouldn’t open the season with him triggering the offense.
No other NFL team decided to gamble on Newton’s recent injury history, which means many of them likely view him as a reserve at this point. If he’s still viewed that way a year from now, it would be better for his market value if he’s viewed as a reserve who helped the young player who beat him out to become better by supporting him and sharing his knowledge.
If Newton, the 2015 MVP, should have a big season with the Patriots and turn it into a huge payday elsewhere, he wouldn’t be the first to do so, and the Patriots would be better off for it. Also, according to ESPN, if Newton stays one year in Foxboro and leaves for free-agent riches, the Patriots could receive a compensation pick as high as the third round. That would replace the third-round pick the Patriots lost for being careless enough to videotape the Bengals sideline during a game against the Browns.
It’s interesting that the Newton news broke so quickly after the NFL handed down its punishment Sunday. Coincidence? Not likely. The Patriots orchestrating the timing, acting alone or in concert with the NFL? One of the two. Whichever, it’s not the most curious timing issue having to do with the announcement of the penalty: Why did it take six months? Maybe because the league tried and couldn’t come up with an answer to an obvious question: How could the smartest, most buttoned-up team in football be so dumb, so careless? The league didn’t have to answer it with anything but a $1.1 million fine and a third-round draft choice, leaving the Pats no room to complain for being so dumb, so careless.