Newton no longer apple of Pats’ eye
Free-agent QB opens up about release, battle with Jones, COVID controversy
Cam Newton is a free agent free to speak his mind.
On Friday morning, that’s exactly what he did.
In the latest episode of his YouTube series, Newton said he was surprised by his release last week, and the Patriots cut him because he would have been a distraction. Newton also asserted first-round rookie Mac Jones did not beat him out during their position battle this summer. Nonetheless, Newton said he would have accepted a backup role, but claimed Jones would have been uncomfortable with the situation.
“Can we be honest? The reason why they released me is because indirectly, I was going to be a distraction without being the starter,” Newton said.
“Just my aura.”
The Pats released Newton the morning of Aug. 31, the league’s deadline for regular-season roster cuts. He said he sat with Bill Belichick and Matt Patricia, the team’s senior football adviser, in a brief meeting Newton recalled as taking place shortly after 8 a.m. Newton described the meeting as “all uncomfortable for everybody.”
In an ensuing team meeting at 10 a.m., Belichick told players Jones would be their new starting quarterback.
“Mac Jones didn’t beat me out,” Newton said. “But I would have been a distraction, knowing that if they gave him the starting role, they knew the perception that they would’ve had if the success didn’t come.”
The 32-year-old former MVP expressed no ill will toward the rookie or the team over his 45minute video. Newton said he believes the Patriots will win games with Mac Jones. At the end of the video, where Newton talked with his father, Cecil, on the football field at his high school alma mater in Atlanta, Newton wished the Pats “nothing but love and respect and health throughout this year.”
“I’m not bitter,” Newton said. “I don’t want nobody to think I’m mad. It’s business.”
Specifically on Jones, Newton described the 23-year-old as cool, and said they helped each other this summer. Newton later added: “He did do what he came to do. He proved that he can be productive. And he will be productive.”
Newton flatly denied a claim made by ESPN’s Rob Ninkovich, a former Patriots linebacker, that Jones had been teaching him the playbook.
“How can he teach me?” Newton asked rhetorically.
Newton did share the demands made of him in the Patriots’ offense were different than those he fulfilled in Carolina.
Newton played for several offensive coordinators during his time with the Panthers, before getting released and striking a deal with the Patriots in late June 2020.
“It’s so new to me,” Newton said. “I’ve never been in a system that required me to know where the Mike is, to know the front, to identify the fronts.”
Over his only season as the starter, Newton completed 65.8% of his passes for 2,657 yards, eight touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He also rushed for 12 touchdowns. The Patriots finished 7-9, undone by one of the NFL’s most inept passing offenses and worst collection of pass catchers.
Then, over the 2021 preseason and competitive team periods in training camp, Newton produced worse passing statistics than Jones, whom the Patriots drafted 15th overall last April. Jones will make his NFL debut Sunday against Miami. Newton said he doesn’t intend to retire.
Newton believes Jones would have been named the Patriots’ starting quarterback even if he hadn’t been forced to miss five days for violating the NFL’s COVID-19 protocols for unvaccinated players on Aug. 21. However, Newton also claimed he fulfilled every league requirements that day traveling to Atlanta for what he and the team deemed a club-approved medical appointment. Newton said it was a checkup for a Linsfranc injury his suffered in 2019.
“I crossed all the lines, I checked all the boxes, I dotted all my i’s. And then to find out that I had to sit out, that’s when I kind of felt bamboozled, because y’all told me to go,” Newton said of the Patriots. “It wasn’t like, ‘Cam, if you go, you’re taking it up on your own risk now.’ It was not that.”
On Aug. 26, the day Newton returned, Belichick declined to expound upon the statement the team released days earlier. The Patriots also denied all interview requests for Newton and released him the following Tuesday.
“He didn’t go against team rules, but there was a misunderstanding,” Belichick said. “And it’s exactly what I said it was in the statement.”
The statement read: “On Saturday, Cam Newton traveled to a Club-approved medical appointment that required him to leave the New England area. He received daily Covid tests, which were all negative. Due to a misunderstanding about tests conducted away from NFL facilities, and as required by the NFL-NFLPA protocols, Cam will be subject to the five-day entry cadence process before returning to the facility. Cam will continue participating virtually in team activities and return to the club facility on Thursday, August 26.”
Still, after two weeks, one release and public comments now made by the team and player, it remains unclear what the misunderstanding was that led to the absence that preceded Newton’s unexpected exit.