NFL free agency provided sports fans with a decent amount of concrete news to digest from mid-to-late March, however things have slowed down the past couple weeks.
One high-profile name still available on the open market is Cam Newton after the 2015 league MVP was released by the Carolina Panthers.
“If he’s healthy, Cam Newton is definitely going to help some football team out because he’s one of the more dynamic players in this league,” Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Moon told Sportsnet 960 on Monday.
Since going 15-1, winning MVP and making a Super Bowl appearance in the 2015 season, Newton has had a rough go of it. The soon-to-be 31-year-old is 23-23 as a starter and has dealt with multiple lingering injuries that have many questioning how much he has left in the tank.
“I think people are really concerned about that injury to his foot, the injury he had to his shoulder a couple years ago, and (teams) can’t see him now — because of this whole virus thing people can’t travel around,” Moon said.
“And then also Cam brings a huge personality to whatever football team he comes to. He’s not the typical quarterback. He’s flashy, he likes his fashion and his hats and his hairstyles and all those different things so that’s something an organization would have to want to buy into, that ‘this is going to be the leader of our football team and we can accept that,’ so I don’t think a team is going to bring him in until they can actually sit him down and talk to him and get a chance to know his personality before they make such a big commitment to a player at the quarterback position.”
Moon has known Newton since he was a teenager and attended a football clinic run by the Hall of Famer and fellow former NFLers James Harris and Doug Williams. Moon speaks highly of Newton and even helped him prepare for the combine and pro days prior to being selected first overall by the Panthers in 2011.
“As far as his personality off the field, he’s a very giving guy, he has a great foundation that does a lot in the community, he’s never been in any trouble or anything like that. He’s just a big, big personality.”
Moon added that he isn’t surprised Newton, who won a Heisman Trophy and national title at Auburn, is still available, “because (Carolina) didn’t release him until almost after the main free-agency period was over, so there wasn’t a lot of teams left for him to go to because teams had already filled their quarterback slots when he finally got free.”
The QB carousel has been rather noteworthy this off-season, with a number of teams getting new starters.
Teddy Bridgewater left the New Orleans Saints to take Newton’s spot on the Panthers; Tom Brady left the New England Patriots and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; Philip Rivers signed with the Indianapolis Colts after 16 years with the Chargers organization.
Nick Foles was traded to the Chicago Bears by the Jacksonville Jaguars and Moon recently told TMZ Sports he thinks the Jags could be a good fit for Newton.
“They have Gardner Minshew there as their starter, who’s not really a solidified starter in this league yet, so I still think there’s an opportunity for maybe Cam to go to a Jacksonville and be a starter there,” Moon said.
Moon was slightly less enthusiastic about Newton hypothetically joining the Patriots as Brady’s replacement. He said Newton playing under Bill Belichick “would be a really interesting duo because it’s one thing to bring in a big personality wide receiver (like they’ve done with Randy Moss, Chad Johnson and Antonio Brown in the past) but this is your quarterback. … I just don’t know if Cam fits into that right now in that New England culture.”
The 2020 NFL Draft is scheduled to take place April 23 and depending on how it unfolds it could have an impact on where Newton might end up signing.
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