Cam Newton Won’t Last If Carolina Panthers, QB Don’t Adapt to a Better Game Plan

The fear among some people around the NFL is that Carolina quarterback Cam Newton has already been subjected to the kind of punishment that could shorten or alter his career.

The daunting question is: Can the Panthers and Newton fix the problem? 

Following up on his NFL Most Valuable Player performance of a season ago, Newton is off to a career-worst start statistically with an 80.2 rating. He has been sacked at the highest rate of his career and is out for Carolina’s Monday Night Football game against Tampa Bay.

The concussion came on a helmet-to-helmet hit against Atlanta, and Newton has taken several other shots to the head this season. Finally, Newton’s ball-carrying mileage may be catching up to him.

Through each of his first five seasons, Newton has rushed at least 100 times and is on pace to do that again this year. Since 1961, no other quarterback has ever had more than three such seasons in a row. Moreover, there have been only 21 total seasons in which a quarterback has rushed 100 times or more during that span.

That kind of punishment led to an ominous warning from one former quarterback who was a talented runner himself, former Pittsburgh Steeler Kordell Stewart: “They better clear it up, or he won’t last the year. He won’t last for his career.”

Former Chicago Bears quarterback Bobby Douglass set the record for most carries by a quarterback in a season with 141 (for 968 yards rushing) in 1972, when the season was only 14 games. He was less alarmist but still concerned.

“If you’re going to run that much, you have to learn how to avoid the hard contact,” said Douglass, who was the Newton of his day at 6’5″ and a listed weight of 225 pounds. Douglass also possessed a cannon arm, but the NFL passing game had yet to evolve to provide a lot of easy throws. “You’re going to get hit. I did, but I was able to avoid some of those really big shots.”

Other people around the NFL wonder if Newton has already started to feel the impact. Over his past five games, dating to the Super Bowl 50 loss against Denver, Newton has faced the Broncos twice and Minnesota once. He has been sacked 19 times and intercepted six times in those games.

By the time Newton played against Atlanta last week, he seemed to have an obvious case of the jitters.

“You can see he’s feeling the pressure even when it’s not there,” said one defensive player who has studied Newton this year. The player pointed to a number of erratic throws in which Newton appeared to rush through his mechanics. The result was more than Newton’s usual share of missed throws.

“Cam has never been great with his mechanics,” Stewart said. “That’s not his game. But it’s obvious he’s taken a lot of hits and it’s changing him. Before, …

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