Cam Newton. We knew him back during his days as the Auburn Tigers quarterback. He was the guy that single-handedly took the world of college football by storm and won the Heisman trophy in 2010, a national championship the same year against the Oregon Ducks in the Fiesta Bowl and the following year in 2011, he was selected with the first overall pick by the Carolina Panthers and put the league on notice with a huge rookie season. He’s had his ups and downs throughout his career. One of the ups was the 2015 season when he put the Panthers on his back, led them to a 15-1 record, the top seed in the NFC and had the best season of his career without his top wide receiver in Kelvin Benjamin. That was also the year that he led the Panthers to the Super Bowl and they fell short to the Broncos in what would be Peyton Manning’s final NFL game. After the game, he came to the podium to do his press conference and left the room after hearing a few Broncos speaking about him in the wrong manner. A few weeks ago, a beat writer who happens to be a female asked him a question about routes and he laughed it off stating, it’s funny to hear a woman talk about routes. This week, he was asked a question about the offense gaining large chunks of yards, he scoffed at the question, then just walked out.
I enjoy breaking down Cam Newton and what he’s able to do on a football field. At one time, he was a top-three quarterback to me and when I did my ten best players list entering the 2016 season, he came in as my number one ranked player in the game that year and rightfully so. We’ve seen what he’s able to do. He’s basically unstoppable when he’s out the pocket and he’s shown more confidence in throwing the football from the pocket each year that he’s been in the league. But, I’m not here to really talk about all of that. Cam, you can’t just get up from your press conferences each time you’re asked a question that you don’t like. That comes with this business and if you don’t like that, then maybe you just need to sit down and find a new career. What really bothers me is the immaturity that he displays when he’s been in the league long enough to know how to handle himself. You’re the face of a franchise and with that comes a lot of responsibility and leadership and you’re setting a bad example. You also have a very large following and a majority of the people that look up to you are young kids so when they see you acting this way, they will think it’s acceptable to do what they saw you do. Kids are similar to sponges, they see and absorb everything. It’s time to grow up Cam. You can’t keep doing this. You can’t dance and smile when everything is going well, then act like a sore loser when things don’t go your way.
