HIGHTOWER INTERCEPTS JONES, SPOILS ROOKIE’S STRONG DAY
NEWTON STILL TALKS A GOOD GAME
FOXBORO — Late in Tuesday’s final team drill, Mac Jones rolled left looking for another breezy completion against the Patriots defense. A year ago, Jones might have completed that touch pass. But not now. Not against a defense reinvigorated by new talent, old faces and a wealth of experience. And not over Dont’a Hightower.
Leaping from the left flat, Hightower skied and snatched Jones’ throw with his right hand, then sprinted toward the sideline, where he was swarmed by teammates. Two snaps later, Kyle Van Noy corralled his own interception on a Jones pass deflected at the line of scrimmage. Those picks ultimately spoiled what had been a strong day for the rookie, who outperformed all other Pats quarterbacks for a second straight minicamp practice.
But overall, the Patriots defense dominated again, notching three picks, three more pass breakups and several would-be sacks in fullspeed team drills.
Here are the Herald’s complete practice observations:
FOXBORO — Cam Newton loves Mac Jones, or rather, the player he now refers to as “Mac ‘n’ Cheese.” He thought the Patriots were wise to grab the Alabama quarterback with their 15th overall pick in the NFL Draft and thinks the kid is “pretty cool, man.”
Unlike Jarrett Stidham, however, the arrival of Jones hasn’t necessarily “fired him up” for some quarterback competition, or thinking Jones is now the golden child being groomed as the next starter.
No offense to
Jones, but Newton is too busy conquering his own demons and gaining motivation from the always present chip on his shoulder. He’s too busy worrying about fixing himself, rather than keeping tabs on Bill Belichick’s ultimate quarterback plan.
And for now, that’s how it has to be.
Newton knows he needs to be a lot better not just to hold off Jones, or whoever else, but for his own peace of mind.
At age 32, coming off one of his worst seasons as a pro, Newton is making a last stand to resurrect his career. And while he does feel pushed by the competition, that’s secondary to what’s churning inside of him.
“I don’t need too much to get myself going, let alone that (drafting Jones) happening. And it’s no disrespect to Mac. It’s no disrespect to Bill and his decision. I support it 110% because you still have to do what’s right for the organization, for the long haul,” Newton said Tuesday during his Zoom call with the media. “Like I said, I will reiterate we all have to make each other better and it starts with ourselves and holding ourselves to a daily standard.
“Josh (McDaniels) said it best, this offseason is about getting back to a championship standard,” he continued. “From meeting time, to when you check in, when you clock out, understanding what you’re supposed to do on top of the other 10 people you’re out there with and just putting everybody at ease. No matter who is out there, we’re going to push each other to get better and that is what we’re expecting to do.”
During his press availability earlier in the day, Belichick said Newton was “way ahead” of where he was at this time last year.
At this time last year, Newton wasn’t even a Patriot. He didn’t arrive until much later. But the point is valid. And smartly, Newton won’t say he has everything down, or every issue has been rectified. He knows he still has a long way to go to improve on a season where he threw just eight touchdown passes, with 10 interceptions. To his credit, he ran for a dozen scores, but this is a passing league, and Newton has to hit his targets with better accuracy.
During Tuesday’s minicamp session, he was 10 for 17 in team drills, with an interception. He remains a bit erratic throwing the ball, and looks indecisive at times, getting the ball to receivers late.
But he’s working on it. “I’m just trying to get better each and every day. And that’s it. Take every opportunity to learn from it and to build on it. You know, I’d be the first person to tell you there’s things that I don’t know yet, that I don’t have a full grasp at it, and that’s why OTAs is important. That’s why minicamps is important. That’s why training camps is important,” he said. “Meeting with guys after practice. Meeting with guys on your days off and just getting the camaraderie for the understanding part. So, we got a lot of new additions. I’m still learning, just like every other quarterback is ... we’re just all trying to get better.’’ Newton has been working with quarterback guru George Whitfield after practice sessions to try and iron out some of his difficulties throwing the football. But he’s also doing his best to grasp whatever McDaniels puts on his plate.
“I’m learning as much as possible and not only just doing the things that you’re asked to do,” he said, “but also going it a step further to try to master what is being taught.”
Asked how much of his problems last year were mechanical, Newton didn’t focus on that. He spoke about learning the playbook, and all the difficulties associated with that in an odd year due to the pandemic. He placed more of an emphasis on not knowing the offense.
“I have a constant note that I remind myself each and every day is ‘pre-snap comfort will help post-snap results for me.’ Josh’s system was something that has worked for decades and decades,” said Newton. “So, for me, it was up to me to kind of learn it as much as possible. And I’m so grateful to have another opportunity to learn it as much as I possibly can.
“In the latter part of the season, it just caught up to me,” he said. “I was thinking too much, I was trying to be something, you know, when it just wasn’t enough hours in the day, you know what I’m saying?”
Many hours were put in during virtual meetings, but as Newton pointed out, “you can’t simulate real, live bullets, and that’s what it came down to.”
Like anything, we’ll see if having more time in the offense will spark a better Newton. We’ll see in September if he’s still overthinking and not feeling comfortable.
“I have a job and responsibility to myself to hold myself to a standard that I know I have to play at. It is going to come with proper preparation and that is what it’s coming down to,” he said. “It is going to come down to comfort of understanding the system. My faults, my bads,
I am going to get them next time, those are slowly but surely being flushed out of my vernacular. And just the expectation of getting back to the standard of The Patriot Way is important for me to uphold. That’s the standard.”
Time will tell.
Operation Fix Cam Newton has been in full swing for months. After watching Newton throw the football last season, it might seem like mission impossible, but there’s reason for optimism. George Whitfield Jr., who has been tasked with fixing Newton’s mechanics, sounds confident Patriot Nation will see a different quarterback this season. He told the Herald he’s already seen much improvement in the Patriots quarterback when it comes to throwing the football.
And, some of that was in evidence during OTA practices and minicamp, although for the most part, Newton still had some issues with accuracy.
“Honestly, he has made some nice overhauls in these last few months,” said Whitfield, who runs a quarterback training academy, Whitfield Athletix. “He’s made some nice changes. We’re talking about functional changes, not cosmetic changes.”
Whitfield specifically called it a “recalibration” of his mechanics and footwork. And while it remains a work in progress, the quarterback whisperer is pleased.
“From a progress standpoint, he’s right on track. This is the first offseason in nearly eight years that he’s not recovering from a major surgery. He’s usually ironing out dents and damage to his machine,” Whitfield said Tuesday. “This offseason he gets to focus on the recalibration of his tools and weapons. Being afforded that focus will mean all the difference.”
In short, Superman is trying to make his way back.
Whitfield, a renowned quarterback guru, has a long history with Newton. He prepared Newton for the NFL as a college prospect and was summoned by the Patriots quarterback to help restore his fundamentals.
Long before Mac Jones was announced as the Patriots’ first-round pick at No. 15 overall (and ostensibly their quarterback of the future), Newton was fully engaged in doing whatever he could to right himself.
To that end, Whitfield and Newton have been at it non-stop since February, traveling coast to coast to work together.
From workouts in Newport Beach to fix his footwork to throwing sessions at Boston College, Harvard and the Dexter Southfield school in Brookline, the labor has been long.
“The dude’s been doing five-a-days,” said Whitfield, who of late, has been working with Newton from 5 p.m. to midnight following the workouts in Foxboro.
And, according to Whitfield, Newton has plenty of motivational fuel driving him to put in the work. Whitfield said Newton is well aware he has many critics. He’s seen some of the negative remarks on Twitter. While he doesn’t totally agree with all the critiques, Newton understands where it’s coming from. He knows it wasn’t a popular move when the Patriots re-signed him. That’s provided some motivation to prove people wrong. But more importantly, Newton also knows he has to improve, or his starting career is likely done.
“He does carry this feeling where it feels like the grand majority of Patriot
Nation, they kind of sighed when he re-signed,” said Whitfield. “He’s also humble enough to say he didn’t put good film on tape last year. So I’m trying to fix what came loose. And he’s working on self-correcting.”
All of that is fine, and commendable. But it won’t matter if there’s no improvement in the quarterback’s overall performance come September. The Patriots need Newton to lead a revamped passing game until Jones eventually takes the reins.
It’s possible the Alabama-bred rookie won’t prove ready enough to take over this season. Or, Jones will be so good, he’ll push Newton for the starting job.
So Newton, who had eight touchdown passes and 10 interceptions last year, knows he has to be better. And given his pride, being a Heisman Trophy winner and national champion in college, a former No. 1 overall pick and NFL MVP, Whitfield says he’s more determined than ever not to let 2020 be the lasting memory of his career. Of course, there remains a perception around New England and beyond he can’t be fixed. Many observers are convinced Newton, who’s never been the most accurate passer, can’t straighten his erratic throws no matter how much work he puts in. Whitfield disagrees. He believes most of Newton’s problems last season stemmed from poor footwork, which caused equally poor upper-body mechanics. Newton’s throwing motion deteriorated, in part, because he was fairly fresh off of surgery to repair a Lisfranc injury in December 2019.
After agreeing to sign with the Patriots during the last week of June 2020, Newton had little time to work out the kinks and re-train his feet, especially as he worked to learn a new playbook. He may have started out fine, but eventually, Newton’s mechanics melted. He threw the football downfield almost like it was a javelin. So Whitfield went to work, with all the support and guidance of Patriots coach Bill Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
“Cam and Coach McDaniels have an honest, candid relationship,” said Whitfield. “The coach coaches hard — the player’s job is to respond up to it,” he said. “That’s what’s happened here. There’s a standard. It’s being shared and embraced.
“The dynamic with him and the coaches is a sacred one to him,” Whitfield went on. “He’s spent the majority of the offseason in Boston wanting to lead the voluntary workouts. Really out of respect to Coach Belichick’s placing faith in him as a player and leader.”
That said, Whitfield has essentially brought Newton back to the basics to help foster improvement. His mechanics were just so far off-base, throwing sometimes from a too upright position or with his feet out of alignment.
Whitfield, who has coached Andrew Luck, Jameis Winston and Johnny Manziel in the past, explained that he came up with a plan after seeing what needed to be fixed by watching film and observing him in person.
He described Newton as being 6-foot-6, but needing to throw at 6-foot-1, meaning the quarterback needed to have more bend at the knees, hips and ankles when delivering the football.
“If you watched their games, he’d catch the ball (from the shotgun), and then he grows right back up, straight up,”
said Whitfield. “That’s
not athletic (position-wise) ... and it doesn’t generate a whole lot of power. You can be big and strong, and you can negate your power. That was his situation.”
Along with fixing his throwing posture, Whitfield and Newton have taken strides to correct his footwork. One method Whitfield used was getting the quarterback out on a beach, and making use of the sand.
Why?
Whitfield explained this exercise has to do with muscle memory. With the instability of the sand — Newton was in his bare feet — planting and throwing becomes harder. But the brain is getting trained, so to speak.
“In that soft sand out there, with every step, your effort is getting robbed. So if you put a foot in the sand, you’re going to sink an inch or two,” he said. “And as big as he is, every time he goes back to drop and tries to plant his foot, he’s going to sink more. So he has to recalibrate everything. Your whole nervous system has to calibrate everything. So it’s not really a hardware thing, it’s a software thing going in the sand.”
Whitfield’s goal was to program, or actually re-program, Newton’s mechanics and footwork to erase the bad habits that had formed.
Patriots coaches did some work with Newton in that area, but most of their time last year was spent trying to get him up to speed with the playbook. Given all the COVID-related restrictions, it was tough trying to teach Xs and Os and correct all of Newton’s physical issues last season.
Even Newton quickly realized he needed to put more work in beyond throwing the football. Heading into his age-32 season, if something isn’t right mechanically, it’s not going to fix itself. So throughout the offseason, Newton worked out at Gillette in the morning, then joined Whitfield for their sessions. Late at night, the two would go over film of the workout to see the corrections in action.
“That’s the driving force. For years, when you’re the biggest, strongest, baddest ... and you go into the stadium and you got this cape flowing off your back, it’s easy to get in the mentality of, ‘I don’t have to spend the dog days of summer doing all that other stuff,’ ’’ said Whitfield. “So now, we’re at that point in his career, where pushing the mechanics to the forefront is important because it can prolong you.”
The Patriots also made suggestions to Newton on what needed work, and the former MVP relayed them to Whitfield so he could incorporate those notes into their sessions. After re-signing him, the Pats spent a fortune in free agency to provide better weapons, so they have a vested interest in having the best Newton at their disposal. And, again, with Jones on board, it behooves Newton to take control and capably handle the offense, so the rookie won’t be rushed.
Newton fully understands the dynamic at play, and plans on making it tough for anyone to win the job over him.
“The whole effort this season, it’s like, you gotta get back down to your basics,” said Whitfield. “I call his belt line an equator, and what’s happening at the equator, and how supported is it, how much power do we have below the equator, how functional are we?”
So for Newton, it’s about posture, it’s about footwork, and it’s also been about getting lighter. Newton had mentioned during an appearance on Brandon Marshall’s “I Am Athlete” podcast that he thought he was too heavy, which in his mind, contributed to his problems.
At the end of the season, Newton was up around 265 pounds, according to Whitfield. During his training, he’s been as low as 236, but he’s now in the 242-245 range, which is evident after seeing him during practices.
When the Patriots re-signed him in March, he was measured at just 8% body fat, according to Whitfield.
So with all the work done, what will we see from Newton that we didn’t see last year?
“A foundation of mechanics,” Whitfield answered. “And there’s a confidence back, and you can only have the confidence coming off that foundation of mechanics. It’s your feet understanding what they’re supposed to do.
“People say footwork. But it’s really like food,” he went on. “You don’t know if they’re talking about dinner or breakfast or Italian, or leftovers, it’s so broad. But it’s Patriots footwork for plays. Then it’s reactionary footwork, like what a boxer does. Boxers don’t just stand in the ring flat-footed. They’re responsible for incoming fire, so you have to be ready for anything.”
It’s helped that for only the second time in the past eight seasons, Newton enjoyed the time leading up to OTAs and minicamp where he wasn’t rehabbing from an injury, or surgery. As for Newton’s cranky shoulder, Whitfield said the quarterback has also been working with a physiotherapist to try and improve his arm function.
“That guy’s been on his shoulders, knees, ankles, everything,” said Whitfield. “And he’s very honest. He’s giving him the unvarnished truth about where he is. And Cam’s getting more range of motion.”
Still, there are no guarantees. Newton should improve just based on the cast around him — tight ends Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith will make life easier — along with his mechanics and footwork getting back on track.
Being a year into the system will also help. But Newton also needs to do a better job reading defenses, and doing so quickly, which is a separate matter from mechanics. He’s still been indecisive and late with his throws during camp.
Whitfield can only speak about delivering the football, and he sounded confident we’d be seeing a different quarterback in 2021 when September rolls around. And the proof will come soon enough in practices, training camp and eventually, games.
With the media getting to view several OTA workouts and minicamp, it was an opportunity to see how — if at all — Newton had improved to this point.
He certainly had a tighter, more compact motion on the short balls, but he still lapsed on some throws with his footwork, and dropping his shoulder. Add in a hand injury that kept him out of some of the workouts, and overall, it appears he’s still a work in progress.
“There’s a lot of humility there. This isn’t like (he’s) coming back to scorch the earth. For him, he’s not making excuses. He’s just saying (last year) was nowhere near my best,” said Whitfield. “If that was his best, and that’s how he looked, he’d say he needs to be holding a clipboard or something or go do something different.”
Even Whitfield acknowledged he was taken aback watching Newton struggle down the stretch. He couldn’t believe the delivery had become so flawed. Like Patriot Nation, he couldn’t fathom all the bounced balls at receivers’ feet.
Newton has to be able to hit his targets in 2021. He can’t just provide a running dimension.
With Jones now in the fold, and Jarrett Stidham making a push, there’s even more motivation for Newton to improve as many parts of his game that are possible.
Bottom line, Whitfield sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
Newton has gotten the message. He knows he’s the starter unless or until someone beats him out. According to Whitfield, Cam’s trying to “pay it back” for the faith Belichick has shown in him.
“After minicamp he will amp up his charge,” said Whitfield. “Each week will be a personal training camp for him; attacking weaknesses, building consistency and mastering his offensive system. Urgency will drive it.”