Sunday night was surprisingly hectic for the New England Patriots. In less than 20 minutes, the NFL was reported to have robbed the Patriots in a third-round draft pick in 2021 and fined him $ 1.1 million for illegally filming the Bengals sideline and, Seemingly out of nowhere, New England had signed free-agent quarterback Cam Newton to a one-year contract.
Losing a third-round pick in next year’s draft could prove costly for New England. After all, the alleged starting quarterback before Newton’s signing on Sunday was Jarrett Stidham, a fourth-round pick from Auburn. Less than a week ago, a league member speculated that Stidham would start all 16 games for the Patriots in 2020. But Newton, another Auburn QB and former NFL MVP, has overturned that assumption. In the short term, Newton’s addition could improve the Patriots’ Super Bowl odds: At least one sportsbook moved the Patriots with a 3.9 percent shot to raise the Lombardi trophy to 5.3 percent after signature will be reported.
Still, signing Cam is not without risks. Newton presumably has a high probability of future injury, making the possibility of future production uncertain. He has had a series of surgeries in recent years, the most recent of which was an operation on his foot in December for a Lisfranc injury. The uncertainty of the injury, along with reports that the teams were unable to resolve it due to COVID-19, may explain why New England was able to sign him with a minimal league contract. But putting the risk of injury aside, assuming Cam is healthy enough to start with, there is decent evidence that he can be a productive passer for the Patriots.
Based on the work of Eric Eager and George Chahrouri of Pro Football Focus, we know that a quarterback’s passing performance from a clean one is one of the best predictors of his future production, and Newton has been very consistent on those pitches to throughout his career.
With the exception of 2019, when he started just two games, Cam has not had a QBR below 50 in clean pocket shots since entering the league. The percentage of completion over expected, or CPOE, can also help us forecast future performance, and in 2018 Newton completed passes of 4.2 percentage points over what we would expect from a league average QB, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. When Newton enters his 31-year season, there is no reason to believe that he will not return to his former form if his health cooperates.
But Cam’s passing could be secondary to the value he brings to New England as a running back. Mobile quarterbacks make defenses represent an additional player, negating the advantage of numbers in the running game that defenses generally enjoy over pocket passers, whom they can often safely ignore. And Cam’s size brings an additional dimension of difficulty to the problem of defending the race because it is so difficult to take him down. Since 2011, Newton has led the NFL quarterbacks with 110 forced lost tackles, according to Pro Football Focus. But these races are not just broken and rough plays: Newton is a smart and instinctive player that a team can trust with optional plays like zone reading. Since 2011, Newton has led the NFL with 13 touchdowns in 242 quick zone read attempts, the most number of attempts among quarterbacks in that span.
Newton is effective in the reading area
Cam Newton’s regular season zone read hasty plays, 2011-19, with added expected points (EPA) per play and success rate *
| Season | Zone reading rainfall | Touchdowns | EPA / Play | Success rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 22 | 3 | +0.08 | 54.5% |
| 2012 | 41 | one | +0.07 | 46.3 |
| 2013 | twenty-one | one | +0.02 | 47.6 |
| 2014 | 3. 4 | 0 0 | +0.07 | 58.8 |
| 2015 | 35 | two | +0.05 | 42.9 |
| 2016 | twenty | one | +0.00 | 47.6 |
| 2017 | 31 | 3 | +0.11 | 64.5 |
| 2018 | 36 | two | +0.05 | 50.0 |
| 2019 | two | 0 0 | -0.31 | 0.0 |
Smart soccer analysts believe the Patriots will tailor their offense to maximize Newton’s strengths. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels has likely run concepts from his time in Denver with Tim Tebow that he can dust off and adapt to Cam’s specific strengths, and the Patriots defense is widely regarded as good enough to keep games close at hand. Despite the unpredictability of defensive performance from year to year. There’s a lot that will have to be broken for the Patriots to make a deep playoff career in 2020. But even if all Newton did was divert attention from another round of league penalties for questionable competitive behavior, it may already have been worth it.
