Former NFL quarterback Cam Newton has ruffled feathers with recent comments about some of the league's top signal callers.
In recent episodes, “4th & 1st place with Cam Newton” The former MVP called quarterbacks Brock Purdy (49ers), Tua Tagovailoa (Dolphins), Jared Goff (Lions) and Dak Prescott (Cowboys) “difference makers” for their respective teams. He explained why he considers him a “game manager.”
“Teams aren't winning because of him,” Newton said of Purdy, who currently holds the top seed in the NFC. “He manages the game.
“This might ruffle a lot of feathers if we as game managers put it like that, but let's be honest, Brock Purdy, Tua Tagovailoa, Jared Goff and actually Dak Prescott. is.
“They're game managers. They're not difference makers.”
ESPN NFL reporter Kimberly A. Martin ripped off Newton's analysis.
“In 2023, a year where NFL backups are everything, where is Cam? He's not on an NFL roster, right?” Martin said on Wednesday's “Get Up.” “He's talking about all the game managers in the NFL.
“His voice literally sounds like people tweeting at me from their basements, saying, 'Go back to the kitchen.' Like he's at home watching over me.”
Newton, the 2015 NFL MVP with the Panthers, has not played in the league since 2021.
Newton, 34, recently said he hasn't heard from an NFL team in two years.
ESPN contributor Domonique Foxworth added that Newton was just saying “outlandish things” to make headlines.
“He wants you to download it, rate it, review it. He's saying crazy things so he can get on 'Get Up,'” Foxworth said. . “Then do that guy a favor because it's absurd. Dak Prescott? When he said Dak's name, I thought, 'He's telling a joke right now.'”
On the “4th & 1” show, Newton named Christian McCaffrey, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill as difference-makers in the NFL.
“They're influencing this game in the only way they know how,” he said.
Newton explained that players like Purdy, Tagovailoa, Goff and Prescott are not asked to win games for the team, but rather to not lose games.
“If you're really going to call a spade a spade, there's a difference between a game manager and a game difference maker,” Newton said. “I'm not saying they can't win MVP, but that's the reality.
“If there's a game manager that can win MVP, it has to be Jared Goff because he means a lot to the Detroit Lions.”
Newton also acknowledged that some people will say, “Oh, that's just Cam talking.”
“No, brother, this is the honest story,” he said. “It means they understand that there's still a chance they can win MVP as a game manager, but there's a difference between a game manager and a game changer.”
Purdy, Tagovailoa, Goff, and Prescott all lead the team entering Week 15.
Purdy, the 262nd and final pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, improved his passer rating (116.9), QBR (74.2), completion percentage (70.2) and yards per pass attempt in his first full season as a starter. (9.9), which led the NFL.
The 23-year-old signal-caller has the second-best chance of winning MVP, behind Prescott.
Prescott is having a career year after being labeled a turnover machine last season.
His interception rate has dropped to 1.3 percent, the lowest since his rookie year.
