Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton has been placed on the injured reserve and will miss the rest of the season. Being a Panthers fan myself, this hurts the heart a little bit. The 2015 MVP will be sidelined with a foot injury in the preseason. Cam was coming off shoulder surgery and was feeling very good during camp. Many people, including myself were expecting a comback to star level play after a dissapointing second half of last year, where Newton missed the last two games due to the shoulder.
Cam played the first two games of this year, but it was nothing like the Cam Newton panthers fans had hoped for. Cam only completed 56.2% of his passes, didn’t throw a touchdown, and had one interception. The Panthers lost both of these games and started out the new year 0-2. The big difference in Cam was his versatility. When he was the MVP, he was able to use his legs and ran for 636 yards with 10 rushing touchdowns. He wasn’t able to run nearly as much, or at all for that matter as he would have liked to due to his foot. -2 yards on 5 carries over 2 games does not work for Cam’s playstyle and it leads to why the Panthers didn’t have success. The foot injury killed a big part of Cam’s game, and the pain was too much that he had to be sidelined.
His replacement has been no slouch coming in and filling the spot. Kyle Allen has been good this year. Of course we have seen flashes of an inexperienced quarterback, but that will happen with everybody. Allen is 5-1 over the 6 games he has started this season, and he has thrown for 1291 yards, and a touchdown to interception ratio of 9:4. Clearly these stats don’t jump off the page, and it’s not better than a 100% healthy Cam Newton, but if Kyle Allen keeps playing well and keeps improving, the Panthers could be left with a difficult QB decision at the end of this year.
If the Panthers trade or cut Cam Newton at the end of this year they could save $19 million. Now is this the right decision? We don’t really know yet and it depends on how Kyle Allen finishes out the season. The panther’s fan inside of me desprately wants Cam Newton back and healthy, but we won’t know what way the direction Carolina will take their QB situation for a little while.
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