Cam Newton, New England Patriots

So, the New England Patriots got Cam Newton, and the tank for Trevor Lawrence might not be as on as some of us thought.

Newton battled through an ugly two-game stretch in 2019 where he was fighting through injury, before sitting out the remainder of the season. But it’s important to remember two things about the former NFL MVP, if nothing else. One, the Patriots make life easy for their quarterbacks. And two, Cam Newton is a good football player.

Tom Brady stands as a living testament to point No. 1. Yes, the former Patriots legend is the unequivocal, undisputed greatest of all time– but he’s also A) Old. Specifically, 42 years old during 2019 and B) A player in decline, and has been regressing since 2017. Losing arm strength, being less efficient with his passes, and taking a huge hit to his accuracy.

And yet, despite all of this, Brady still put up numbers in 2019. He broke the 4,000-yard mark, managed to hit 24 touchdowns, all while throwing just eight interceptions. Cam Newton, barely 31-years-old, is plenty young, and hopefully, plenty healthy to execute an offense masterminded by two great coaches– Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels.

It’s been a while since the Patriots needed to operate without Brady, but they’ve done it well before. They were able to run successful offenses on the fly with a rookie Jacoby Brissett and a Jimmy Garoppolo with no starting experience in 2016, and with Cam Newton, they’ll be getting a player with the experience to learn the Patriots offense and the skill to run it well.

Remove the recency bias of Newton’s last two injury-plagued games and what you have is the real Cam Newton. A strong-armed, playmaking quarterback, albeit one with a pretty glaring interception and accuracy issue. Cam might have ironed out some of those accuracy issues in 2018 when he finished the year completing nearly 68% of his passes, but the interception issue has remained consistent, even in his better years.

Luckily, with Newton’s own skill combined with the Patriots’ system, some of those issues are likely to level out. Newton will, in all likelihood, be asked to be less of a gunslinger and more of what Tom Brady was in 2019– with a bit more running in the mix.

26 Passing TD’s — 12 INT’s — 63% Completion Percentage 3,700 Yards 3 Rushing TD’s — 400 Yards