They have a really great defense forcing tons of TOs, but their offense is averaging the 3rd most points in the league despite missing their best WR being hurt and having no above average skill players besides Greg Olsen. He is 3rd in the league in rushing TDs and top 10 in passing TDs despite having 25 less passing attempts than anyone above him. He's making that offense really fucking good even if he doesn't have pristine passing stats. Like Parker said, maybe not an elite QB, but an elite football player.
Stop trying to act like he's Trent fucking Dilfer. I don't give a shit about Cam Newton, in either direction because I'm not bringing amateur hour football into my analysis. I've watched this guy in the pros and I am very well of who he is throwing passes to and handing the ball off to. He has a great defense, but they're not putting up those points every single game. Not an Elite QB, but that man is an Elite Football Payer who happens to play QB and if he does this shit again next year I think we can put that to bed. Maybe if he had some WRs that weren't WR3s on other teams then maybe his passer rating would be better. You can't even fucking play with those guys in Madden on Rookie mode. Trust me, I just tried this weekend.
I'm going to address these two, because the amount of sheer ignorance is staggering. You know two other QB's that played with scrubs most of their careers? Tom Brady and Donovan McNabb. For years, Brady had a patchwork receiving corps. Look at the list here. Most of these guys do not inspire fear in defenses. Other than Gronk and Moss, he has not really had premier receivers. Ok, his receivers are not great. Plenty of other QB's have dealt with that and had much better individual stats. Like Rivers, Brees, Brady, McNabb, among others. So let me get this straight, your argument is his receivers suck, yet, opposing defenses won't stack the box to stop the run because they're afraid of them? That makes no sense. Uh, there are probably ten guys that might disagree with you. Let's no let the facts get in the way. Well, you can argue 'elite' in a limited fashion, but a QB having his career year, yet barely managing to crack the top 20 is in no way, shape or form, elite by any cognizant definition. I'd take him over Russell Wilson too, but there are a lot of QB's I'd take long before Newton. Also missing from your post is anything remotely resembling a stat that sets Newton apart from other QB's as a QB. Look, you don't have to be a pedantic, pseudo-intellectual, passive aggressive douchebag every day, even God took a day off. Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were personally insulting each other to utterly fail to make a point. The one major difference is what we are talking about individual celebrations in a team sport. It's narcissistic in the extreme. Seriously, you know that some of these guys practice their celebration dances at home in front of a mirror, right? You do realize the latest incident was THIS PAST WEEKEND, right? There's no change here. It's the same old self entitled Cam Newton acting like self entitled Cam Newton. Like at his first Pro Bowl where both teams didn't like him, including his own. Granted, this was 4 year ago, but given his continued childish outbursts, including a fight with his own cornerback, I'm not seeing the maturity yet. Maybe he will mature, but I haven't seen it yet. Ohhh my, the sting of an utterly worthless point by someone that has nothing constructive to say. See? I can toss completely irrelevant insults right back. Aaaaand you manage to miss the point. See it, ooops, over your head. So let me break it down for you. It's called class and sportsmanship. I don't know any definition of sportsmanship that includes rubbing it in the other guy's nose. And that's what Newton was doing. Actually, he didn't. Nor did you. Neither of you has shown any of his stats that set him apart from the crowd of QB's playing right now that would make him 'an elite' QB, which is precisely what I took issue to begin with.
First of all, irrelevant insults are fun. As this is a sports thread and trash talk is necessary. Real talk is necessary too, like when Cam said he's slap the fuck out that guy. That shit is funny, and he probably said it with a smile. He didn't rant at the guy, he said it while walking, not missing a beat. Who gives a shit? We act like children aren't playing Call of Duty hearing much worse every day for hours on end. Everyone thinks James Bond is classy and he kills people, now Cam is not classy because he shouted at a rival fan? Psssh. Also, yes, people should practice their dances. You want them to be good, you want them to be memorable. I can't wait for his next dance. Gronk is smart and doesn't dance, because he can't. He just spikes the ball, which is actually damaging for the ball and for the field. No one gets mad at Gronk. Also, dancing after a TD is an expression of joy and elation. Do you hate joy? Do you hate happiness? Why do you hate happiness? At least gamecocks has a good reason to hate Cam.
But I did, in my post you didn't address point by point. Cam is 1 off the league lead in rushing TDs and his red zone QBR is 4th in the league because he's a weapon running and passing. I also pointed out his TD passes to attempts ratio. Brady plays in a pass-emphasizing system where recievers are interchangeable and McNabb always had one of the best two way backs on his hip in Brian Westbrook. Brees, Brady, McNabb, they also all had excellent offensive minded HCs designing gameplans to emphasize strengths. The Panthers are run by a former DC and an OC in Mike Shula who has been a scrub ever since he flamed out of Alabama. Your handy dandy link shows that the Panthers #1 WR and main deep threat has the second most drops in the league despite having half the receptions of the leaders. The only regular receiver in terms of targets that has a drop percentage worse than Ginn is fucking Leonard Hankerson. And my point with the RBs and the WRs is that none of them are standout forcing a defensive adjustment. You can play base defenses and force Newton and Olsen to make plays cause you're not getting burned deep and the RBs aren't going to kill you up front. Clearly your definition of a good QB is someone who sits and slings passes with accuracy and puts up gaudy numbers. Thats fine. Newton doesn't have the passing stats to please that, but his rushing numbers are impressive and make up for a chunk of that and are part of his importance to the offense. The rest? Fuck it. You don't like showy, you think sportsmanship means "thank you can I have another" when defenses are jaw jacking you or kidney punching you in piles, whatever. You prolly LOVED Barry Sanders handing the ball to the official like all NFL purists do. The NFL is big business, big entertainment, like it or not. Team celebrations are also illegal. So you can either dance and show emotion on your own, or you can do nothing. Also, I have no idea how a lead singer being a narcisstic prima donna is better than a QB doing a damn dance. Who cares if they practice it, they are doing that dance because they did their job and did it well. We're not talking about a DB celebrating after a broken up pass. I'll get off your lawn now.
Stole a laptop and took money to sign at auburn, not irrelevant. Thank you for acknowledging my hatred.
Am I the only one who would take Russell Wilson over Cam Newton? Newton is a pretty good NFL quarterback, and the main knock against him is that he's kind of a cocky dick. That's not the worst thing in the world, but as a Bengals fan it reminds me a little of Chad Johnson/OchoCinco. Chad was a great receiver, possibly the best in the league at the time in terms of running routes and body control. He was also a pretty good guy at a time when many of his teammates were constantly getting fined or arrested, yet a lot of people around the country hated him because he was kind of a cocky dick. From a football standpoint, Newton is a great athlete and turned out to be a better passer than I expected after watching him at Auburn. He's also built like a tank, which makes him viable as a running quarterback in a way matched only by Tim Tebow. On the other hand, I admit that I barely ever get to see Carolina play, but I can't really come up with a way to differentiate Newton from Colin Kaepernick beyond the fact that one of them has played in a super bowl.
To be fair, one of the nothings Brady is making something out of is former Carolina scrub Brandon LaFell, who increased his career high yards in a season by 50% when he moved from Newton to Brady.
Fair point. But I'd say 2 things. Newton took a big leap in quality recently. And secondly, NE is a way more pass happy offense. I don't think its apples to apples. As for Kap vs Cam, I think its just Kap regressing vs Cam progressing. I also always thought Kap looked to run more than Cam has, but thats just me. Kap seemed more like RG3 than Cam.
Kap / Russell Wilson / RG3 / (Steve Young, even Aaron Rodgers) "scramble" when they get out of the pocket. Cam "runs," from the pocket or outside it. He's 6'5" 250. It's totally different and should not be discounted, because like Manning or Brady's quick release, it adds a different dimension to the QB position that others simply don't have.
I thought it was awesome. The last three NFL games - Sunday night Broncos win, Monday night Ravens win, and last night's Packers win - have been incredible finishes. After Detroit got that long first down with about 2 minutes left and Packers had no timeouts, I got up and went to the kitchen to get another beer. I paused the TV "just in case." When I got back, I started jumping ahead to see if I missed anything. I kept having to back it up, because I was like "wtf, how did they get more time? wtf, how did he catch that ball?" I mean, sure it helps that Rodgers is my fantasy QB, but still, it was awesome.
That was just god awful. Sure it's a win and they needed it badly but holy hell what a craptastic first half. I looked at the SO and said "Can anything else go wrong? Jesus fucking christ!!" Then, Rodgers was called for intentional grounding. Question answered. The face mask, I agree, was a sketchy call though. The bottom line is they should have never been in the position they were at the end of the game. They are still playing like shit. Unless certain offensive linemen get healthy and/or the backups figure out how to protect Rodgers, they won't last long come the playoffs.
It's amazing how few games it took for this team to go from Super Bowl or bust to celebrating squeaking one out against the lions. I may have watched the hail Mary highlight a dozen times though. I don't think they'll last in the playoffs regardless. I thought Cobb was a much better player than he is, turns out once he doesn't have Jordy Nelson to draw away coverage he's not even average. James Jones is the best receiver they have right now, but he's not suited for a #1 role. The rest are #3/4 guys. I looked up the stats on dropped passes for GB this year and supposedly it's 15. I call bullshit. I've seen half that many in single games. I guess I'm not sure how blatant a drop has to be to figure in statistically. The only thing keeping the passing game alive is how well Rodgers scrambles. He has someone chasing him on practically every drop back, it's fucking impossible to have a scary offense with those receivers. The sad thing is the defense really has gotten a lot better, but it's not mattering.
I've only watched the last 3 Packers games this year, but I don't think that's an unreasonable number. From what I saw Rodgers was missing a lot of open receivers on throws that he's always hit. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if once the season's over it comes out that he was injured for most of this season.
Fucking FOX. "Well the Seahawks are up 28-0, so we're going to transfer you to a more competitive game." Great. So instead of watching two teams possibly headed to the post season, now I have two sub .500 teams playing. Cocksuckers.