Cam Newton: Playing for Patriots is 'a match made in heaven'

Cam Newton seems happy to be in New England.

In an interview on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” Monday morning, Newton said he was originally unsure how he’d fit with the Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick before signing with the team on July 8.

“The same questions that a lot of people, and talk shows, gossip talk, and barber-shop talk, and chitter-chatter text messages wanted to know, I wanted to know as well,” Newton said. “Is it real what they say about Belichick? Is it going to be too … I didn’t know.”

After moving past any doubts he had about Belichick and the team, Newton admitted that the Patriots are a “match made in heaven.”

“I think, honestly, it’s been a match made in heaven for me, just knowing that I’m at a place where everything is pulling in the same direction and everything is geared toward winning,” Newton said. “Coming from a person that has won at all levels, I feel as if I do the things the right way, trusting a lot of the same people that got me to this point, and trusting coaching, I think this is something that when you look at an opportunity in a timely manner it can be accomplished.”

Newton recognized the different kinds of players that Belichick’s employed over the years and realized that if he can make it work with those players, then he and Belichick can find success together.

“You look at the lineage of players he’s had over the years. Obviously, [Tom] Brady. The Randy Mosses. Corey Dillons. Lawrence Taylors. The list goes on. Tedy Bruschi. It’s no wonder why he’s sustained success over the years,” Newton said. “When I name those players, those are just a small smorgasbord of different types of guys, cultures, personas, and everything alike.

“If he was able to accomplish those things with those players, it made a lot of sense from the time I spoke to him, and obviously meeting him face to face, it removed any type of doubt — if I even had any. It’s just exciting to play for a person like that.”

Newton’s had an eventful offseason. Carolina, where Newton played the first nine years of his career, announced in March that they’d given Newton permission to seek a trade. Newton was released by the Panthers a week later after the team couldn’t find a trade partner.

Newton signed a one-year deal with the Patriots on July 8 for a reported base salary of $1.05 million, the league’s minimum, with incentives that could earn Newton up to $7.5 million. He entered Patriots’ training camp in a three-way battle for the starting quarterback job with Jarrett Stidham and Brian Hoyer.

Last week, Belichick reportedly told the team that Newton would be the team’s starting quarterback. In addition, Newton was named one of the Patriots’ eight captains for the 2020 season.

𝟮 𝟬 𝟮 𝟬 𝗣 𝗔 𝗧 𝗥 𝗜 𝗢 𝗧 𝗦 𝗖 𝗔 𝗣 𝗧 𝗔 𝗜 𝗡 𝗦 pic.twitter.com/Hyvc7QzPEW

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) September 3, 2020

Newton said that it’s been tough to grasp everything that’s happened over the last few months.

“Honestly it’s been so overwhelming at times that I just haven’t been able to grasp it from a whole totality standpoint,” Newton said. “I was in Carolina, and had given everything to that organization that I possibly can, and I will always have a place in my heart for Carolina.

“But as a professional, you go where you’re summoned to go, and what’s best for your career. Just as it will be what’s best for the organization. I’ve just been loving myself and loving this opportunity I’ve had, coming into this position.”

Now that Newton has been named the starting quarterback less than two months into his time in New England, it appears that he and Belichick have meshed well. Belichick even raved about Newton’s work ethic, saying in a radio interview last week that “Nobody works harder than Cam does.”

Newton was asked why he thought questions of the pair being able to work or not were asked.

“We’re going honest? It is because I’m a Black athlete, a quarterback that for a long time, I’ve been unapologetic; carried myself in a way that the media hasn’t gave me my just due,” Newton said. “But yet at the same time, I do understand that and I don’t have no type of resentment toward that. I embrace who I am, I embrace the moment. I live in the moment. One of the quotes I live by is ‘carpe diem.’

“Throughout it all, I’ve been able to see an opportunity. I went down a list of things I expect from Bill Belichick, just like Bill Belichick wants a list of things he wants out of Cam Newton. I think the narrative coming here was kind of stereotypical to an unjust eye; ‘We heard this about Cam. We heard that. He’s a prima donna. He’s this and that.’ But when you really put a microscope to who I really am, there is a lot of favoritism that has not been favorable for my benefit.”

Newton said that he doesn’t want his time in New England to be about himself and wants to be a leader for the Patriots.

“I’m not going to make this about me,” Newton said. “I want to make this about this team and how to gain these guys’ trust. I think that’s the biggest thing, the biggest challenge I have doing, is letting these guys understand, ‘Listen, I know there’s been a lot said, I can feel the eyes and the attention that’s on me as soon as I walk inside the facility, but at the end of the day, you guys got to know a lot of that is BS, and I’m here to remove all doubts.’”

When Newton goes under center in the Patriots’ Week 1 matchup against the Dolphins, he’ll hold the title as the quarterback that replaced Tom Brady in New England. He said he doesn’t feel the pressure of replacing the quarterback that brought the team six Super Bowl titles.

“No sir, no sir. And I think the world of Tom,” Newton said when asked if he felt pressure replacing Brady. “Just having, not more of a bird’s eye view, but really knowing the people who really knew him on a day-to-day basis and how they speak so highly of him, and just understanding the greatness that you hear of a person like that, it’s great to hear.

“I think the preparation that’s put forth in where I have been in my career — the dark moments, the low moments, and obviously the high moments — has prepared me for this,” Newton added.

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