June 29, 2020 • 38 mins
Clay Travis and Jason Martin react to the Patriots signing Cam Newton and how this was a vintage Belichick move. The guys say that Cam Newton's willingness to sign for less money shows he has a lot of drive and wants to prove he can still win and Clay shares his top five teams to watch in the upcoming NFL season. Plus, Clay lays out what kind of team the Patriots could be this year and how many wins he expects them to have.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of OutKick the Coverage podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday morning from
six to nine am Eastern three to six am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for OutKick
the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream
us live every morning on the I Heart Radio app
by searching f s R. This is the best of
OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Fox Sports Radio. Well,
(00:28):
Clay Travis is in Florida this week. I was supposed
to be at the helm of this program with Jeff
Schwartz Tuesday through Friday. My name is Jason Martin, host
of the Jason Martin Show here on Fox Sports Radio.
You might remember me from appearances on this very program
through the years as well. You can find me on
Twitter at j mart Radio. But even though he's on vacation,
(00:48):
here comes Cam Newton to the Patriots and that just
wasn't gonna work. So let us welcome in Clay Travis
from his palatial estate. We'll just call it down in Florida. Clay. Uh,
news just had to break when you left town, didn't Yeah,
it always seems like this. I think a couple of
years ago, we had the Urban Meyer News about about
(01:11):
you know, Zack Smith and everything surrounding that. When I
was up in Michigan, and there hasn't been a lot
of really i would say, big sports news in a while.
Now there's lots of news involving sports, but not a
story like this, which is pretty fantastic. I mean, the
NFL has got a ton of great storylines. And Cam
(01:31):
Newton to the Patriots to me is vintage Bill Belichick.
You get a potential potential All Star caliber player, all
Pro caliber player in Cam Newton who's still only thirty
one years old, at almost no cost. I feel good
about his chances to beat out Cam's chances to beat
out Jared's Didham and to beat out Brian Hoyo. Ware
(01:52):
to go wait to go out on a limb there, Clay. Yeah. Yeah,
So so that's a hot take for you, and uh
and there's almost no risk, right, I mean, if Cam
is not back healthy and he doesn't play very well,
then the Patriots just let him go and they go
back into the draft and maybe they go get into
Trevor Lawrence sweet Steaks or who knows what might happen,
(02:13):
or Bill Belle's that sames another Joel On you know,
sort of the reclaimed toy Factory list, right, Um, somebody
that can come out and make a tremendous difference for
the New England Patriots and what now appears to be
a pretty wide open a FCS. Do you believe or
not in Josh Allen? I still think the verdict is
(02:34):
very much out on how Josh Allen's gonna do with
the Bills. We don't know about Sam Donald, you know,
can you stay out of mono? Uh? He hasn't really
played enough games to be back confident in what he's
going to mean for the Jets. Who's going to start
the majority of the games for the Miami Dolphins. Is
it gonna be Ryan Fitzpatrick or is it gonna be
to Uh? This is a wide open division. And if
Cam Newton could come back. We're talking about a former
(02:56):
NFL m v P, a guy who was good enough
to get the Carol and the Panthers to seventeen and
one and a touchdown favorite in the Super Bowl, who
looked like he was poised to become the face of
the NFL. And since that Super Bowl game he has
been thoroughly mediocre. Uh, And now he gets to play
for the greatest coach in the history of the NFL.
(03:18):
And we know already what Bill Belichick has done with
Jimmy Garoppolo when he was healthy. We know what he's
done with Jacobe Burr said, we know we're done with
Matt Castle. I think it's fair to say, awesomely that
Camp has been way more accomplished than any of those
thres guys. And Belichick had a lot of success with
all those, to say nothing of all the success he
(03:39):
had with Tom Brady. So I love this move for
the Patriots. I love this move for Cam Newton. It's
very similar, it seems to me, to what Jamis Winston did,
except the difference. Cam Newton is going to be the
starter for the New England Patriots. He's betting on himself.
He's taking a lot less money than maybe he could
have made elsewhere to try prove that at thirty one
(04:01):
years old, when let's be honest, most NFL quarterbacks are
really just starting to come into their own that he's
not washed up, that he has a lot left. This
is vintage Belichick. I love the move by Cam. I
think this is just a splendid decision by the Patriot
and I think it gives them a legitimate chance. And
we'll talk about this maybe at the end of the hour.
(04:22):
I think it gives them a legitimate chance if you
look at the gambling odds to potentially make a move
in the in the a f C East, and when
yet another division title, just when the Bills, the jeff
and the Dolphins all thought the door was wide open
without without the without Tom Brady, Belichick goes out and
gets to steal. I love the move. Yeah, you know,
(04:42):
I think the only thing that surprised me was it
took this long, because months ago I thought, that's a
situation that makes a little bit of sense if you
think and you want to give Cam the opportunity. If
Cam is finally healthy, I mean, he's dealt with so
much through years. When things are going right, things can
go really right for you. When Cam Newton is your quarterback.
He has some impressive stats. He has not been impressive,
(05:05):
as you just mentioned, since the Super Bowl. But this
is what the Pats do. They did it with Ocho Cinco,
they did it with Antonio Brown. They will bring in
these glitzy guys and and Obviously Cam doesn't have the
baggage All four villain Randy Moss. Yeah, the list goes
on and off. People a lot of people believe, hey,
(05:25):
those guys have gotten nothing left left left and Belichick
goes out and gets a steal. And remember we're talking
about Cam Newton is like I said the m v
P from just a few years ago, but you mentioned
when things go well with Cam, he is a front
and running quarterback. It was they saw the same thing
happen with him at Auburn. Auburn wasn't very good the
(05:46):
year they went fourteen and oh, and he willed them
to a national championship and what I think was maybe
the best single year for a quarterback other than what
we saw from Joe Burrow. Right, Like, that's how good
Cam Newton was in college. He's been yearly that good
in the NFL. There aren't very many guys who have
won a Heisman Trophy and been in NFL m v P.
(06:06):
And Cam still only thirty one years old. And I
know he's taken a lot of hits in the NFL,
but he only played two games last year. He looks
like he's an incredible shape and now he gets to
play for the greatest coach in the history of the NFL.
To me, this is like one of those um, you know,
sort of great bar debates where you would sit around
and you would say, man, what would ex quarterback have
(06:29):
ever been capable of if they had gotten to play
with ex coach? Right, Cam Newton with the greatest coach
in NFL history. That is one of those you would
sit around and maybe argue about. I am thrilled. I'm
ecstatic I mean as a as an NFL fan to
kind of get this laboratory like uh experiment, to see
(06:50):
what's going to happen with Cam meeting Belichick. Yeah, And
one thing that had been discussed was how often the
Patriots were going to be in prime time when the
NFL schedule will came out, and whether or not that
was gonna backfire without Tom Brady there. How interested were
you gonna be after you saw this act a couple
of times. Well, now I think it's gonna do just
fine because everybody's gonna be curious to see what Cam
(07:12):
Newton looks like in the Patriots uniform. This this is
a camp miss because it is so low risk. This
is what the path to do they'll bring you in
and look, if it doesn't work, they'll just move on.
A lot of the names that I mentioned there in
that list of people they've brought in, bigger names, they
just haven't worked out, and they just move on from
them like they're not gonna pay him an exhaust A
lot of this is incentives Clay, and that's exactly right.
(07:34):
And I think one of the challenges, and we'll get
to this maybe a little bit later in the show,
is as excited as I am to see how Cam does.
This is still an offense without a lot of good weapons,
and so, uh, it's not like Cam is walking into
a gold mine. You know, Brady has got incredible tight
ends and wide receivers now down in Tampa Bay. One
reason why Brady left was that lack of weapons, and
(07:57):
I do think that's gonna be a challenge for Cam,
but I can't to see how that's how it plays out.
We're gonna talk more at the end of the hour
about the gambling odds and things like that as it
relates to Cam Newton. This is out kicked the coverage
with Clay Travis as usual with gets up ended at
(08:22):
the last possible second and the big news. Of course,
if you have not heard Cam Newton one year New
England Patriots. We bring in Clay Travis, who was going
to take today's show off right up until this news broke,
and he said, well, that ain't gonna happen, but he
is with his family on vacation down in Florida this week. Clay,
what about this is the most intriguing to you? Is
(08:44):
it the Belichick angle of this? Just in terms of
this has been all about Brady over this last couple
of months, and the Patriots have largely been not talked
about in any way. Now all of a sudden, everything
is centering around the New England Patriots in some way,
shape or form, whether it Brady versus Belichick or now
here's Belichick with a former NFL m v P as
(09:05):
a quarterback. Yeah. I think this just tells us that
the NFL storylines are compelling and uh and and unique
in a way that they haven't been in recent history.
And I mean, you just think pretty straightforwardly about Brady
and Belichick, arguably the greatest quarterback and the greatest coach
(09:27):
ever paired together for effectively a generation, and now they've
gone both in their own directions and if you were
sort of assessing who was going to have the better
post breakup career. It was a fascinating debate because the
benefit that Belichick has is he could theoretically coach six, seven,
eight more years, right, I mean, he could do it.
(09:48):
I don't know if he will, but he could do it.
Whereas I think most people out there would say, Okay,
Tom Brady's got to do whatever he's going to do
in the next two or three years at the most,
because he's gonna be forty three years old, and that
means that Brady has to strike now. He has to
win this post breakup right now. And it seemed like
(10:09):
you was right. He goes to Tampa Bay, Grant comes
out of retirement, You've already got O. J. Howard, You've
got Chris Godwin, you got Mike Evans, you got a
guy in Bruce Arians who seems to be really inventive
with his offensive system. You had a team that was
good enough on defense to make up for the fact
that Jamis Winston through thirty interceptions. You know, if Brady
(10:29):
could go out and just throw let's say, twenty four
touchdowns six interceptions, which is a fairly pedestrian year for him,
this is a team that should be good enough, especially
in an expanded NFL playoff picture, to potentially make the playoffs,
And a lot of people would say, see, Tom Brady
didn't need Bill Belichick in order to win. Conversely, it
seemed like Belichick was comfortable given the limited cap space
(10:51):
that they had. It seemed like Belichick was comfortable with
potentially rolling out Jared Stidham as a guy. And that
seemed like the height of arrogance for Bill Belichick to say,
I'm going to replace the guy who is the greatest
quarterback maybe in the history of the sport with a
quarterback that was the fourth round draft pick, and nobody
else really seemed to watch now one Now, I know
(11:11):
what happened with Drew Bledsoe being replaced by Tom Brady
in the past, and Belichick certainly believed history can repeat itself.
He found a good value in Jimmy Garoppolo, he found
a good value and at g Edgcobe Prisette, he found
a good value in Matt Castle in the games that
he's had to coach without Brady over the years. But
to me, this was I kind of got the sense
and maybe we should have been sophisticated enough to know
(11:32):
as sports fans this wasn't likely, But it almost felt
like Belichick was saying, Okay, this is kind of a
giveaway year, and that's the very anti everything that we've
come to expect from Belichick. But if you were gonna
try Jared stead about there, it definitely didn't feel like
he was making it as aggressive a play as normal
to try to win the division and continue that dominance
(11:52):
that he's had in the a f D East. And
then boom, he goes out and he gets an m
v P in the NFL for almost nothing, a thirty
one year old Cam Newton with a ton to prove,
and he gets an opportunity to replace one, uh stellar
quarterback with potentially another stellar quarterback, and he almost has
to pay nothing at all four him. This is vintage
Belichick and uh and I feel like in many ways
(12:16):
it's game on against Tom Brady in terms of who's
gonna win the break up. One thing that I was
actually thinking about as it related to the timing of
this by the Patriots is because of COVID and because
of not being in person with any of these people,
having to rely on videos and stuff that were articles
that were being written, and there were opinions out there
that said, you know, this is gonna harm cam because
(12:38):
he can't show to somebody in person what he's got.
But if you look at the Patriots, and they waited,
and they waited, and they waited, and then they struck.
And at this point, don't you think if they have
tried to do this three months ago or four months ago,
it would have cost them more potentially than it does
now because it just seems like they waited and they
still got exactly what maybe they were looking at three
(13:01):
or four months ago when they chose not to make
a quarterback selection in the draft. Well, I think when
it speaks to is how few quarterback positions are actually available.
And you saw Jamis Winston take almost nothing to go
be the backup of the New Orleans Saints. Andy Dalton
took a very small amount of money relatively speaking to
be the backup for the Dallas Cowboys. For a long
(13:22):
time in the NFL, we've talked about how there aren't
enough quarterbacks to fill all of the roster spots. Well,
this year, in particular, it seemed like there were a
lot more quarterbacks than there were available spots, and we
kept pointing to this Do England Patriot position and saying, look,
almost every team either has a guy that they know
(13:43):
is their guy at least starting, or they've got a
young quarterback that they're developing. There aren't very many options
out there. And to me, this is solidified by the
fact that you know, with Jamis Winston taking basically less
than a million dollar or a year and Cam Newton
taking an incentive laden contract it doesn't pay him very
(14:05):
much money at all either, that these guys are desperate
to still try and prove that they belong. And I
just thought it was interesting in the context of let's
say a Colin Kaepernick, who suddenly is now top of
mind for a lot of different teams. Kaepernick, Uh, would
he take less than a million dollars to play in
the NFL right now? I kind of doubt it. And
(14:27):
to me this is evidence of how desperately Jamis Winston
and Cam Newton really want to play still in the NFL.
And Jamis I understood more than Cam, just because again,
Cam just didn't look like he wanted to be there
at times, and he was so battered and he was
so beaten. But just watching him in that last game
(14:48):
when they finally pulled him and then we didn't see
him again last year, he looked awful, but he looked miserable.
He looked depressed. He looked like somebody that had just
wanted to go home, wanted to be anywhere else but
on the a ball field. So for him to fight
as hard as he has over this last stretch to
land a new job with a lot to prove, probably
(15:09):
in his own mind, just to say, hey, I can
still do this. There's still some of that dog in me.
That speaks a lot to Cam Newton. And I wasn't
sure he had this level of desire still to play football,
And I'm happy that that he's kind of proven me wrong,
at least so far. Yeah. I think that's the biggest takeaway, um,
is that you know it would be easy for Cam
(15:31):
new We even had this conversation on the show. Does
Cam Newton, who really doesn't have in theory a lot
to prove? Right? I mean, if you told anybody out
there right now, hey, your NFL resume is going to
have as follows. Your quarterback resume will have as follows
when you finish your career. You're gonna win a National Championship,
(15:52):
You're gonna win a Heisman Trophy, you're gonna win an
NFL MVP, and you are going to play in a
super Bowl. Yes, I know, Cam and probably still sits
around and thinks about what he could do differently in
that game against the Broncos and his legacy and life
because we define guys so frequently by winning a Super
(16:12):
Bowl at the quarterback position would be fundamentally different if
he had gone out and won that Super Bowl. But
to me, ultimately this is about more than anything else,
Cam Newton still having so much drive that he wants
to play even if he's not even gonna make any
(16:33):
money at all. He still feels like he has the
ability to go out and win a Super Bowl. And
if he has that ability, what better way to prove
it than to get to play for the best coach
in the history of the NFL. It's just a huge
win to me for Cam Newton. It's investing in yourself.
(16:53):
It's similar to me to the decision that Jamis Winston
made because Jamis, while he's not got a starting job,
he at least I know Taysom Hill is there as well,
but he can look at Sean Payton and say, man,
Sean Payton has proven that he's a great coach of quarterbacks.
We know Drew Brees is not going to play forever.
Somebody's got to be the next man up for the
New Orleans change. This is even better for Cam because
(17:16):
he gets to come in and be in theory, the
default guy if he's healthy. And uh, and I mean,
I just think it is a blockbuster smart play by
him to make that happen. Clay another thing, and Clay
is down in Florida. He is off this week. But
that sounds kind of odd because he's not off right now.
He is on with us via his phone from his
(17:37):
estate I guess you could say his condo down in
Florida with his family. But does this make And I'm
not saying he was unlikable before, because I don't think
that he was. At times. He's definitely a front running
kind of guy. That's something we've discussed for years on
this radio station and on this radio program itself. But
this makes him to me more routable. I know he's
going to a team that usually you want to hate,
(17:59):
but this move and you kind of contextualize it well
in your last answer, your last response when you talked about, hey,
he's gonna play for very little money because he's got
a lot of drive to show what he's capable of.
That makes me kind of want to see him succeed.
Doesn't it make you feel the same way. Yeah, I
think the Patriots with Cam are more intriguing than the
Patriots with Brady. And I don't mean that because I
(18:20):
think Camp's better. I just mean that because that's a
movie I feel like I've seen before. I know what
Brady and Belichick are gonna do. They're gonna stumble out
of the gates a little bit. People are gonna say
are they done or not? And then they're still gonna
find a way to win the a f C East.
We know Tom Brady is good, and look, this is
probably a good debate in general. I've been arguing for
a while if you told me I could only watch
(18:43):
one NFL team this year, and you just took, you know,
my personal fandom out of it, because I've got season
tickets and I root for the Tennessee Titans. But if
you took my personal team out of it, to me,
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But to me, the team I
was like almost the most least interested in watching if
(19:03):
Jared'stidham was going to be the quarterback was Bill Belichick
and the Patriots. Not not because like I I hate
Belichick or I hate the Patriots, although I know there's
a lot of you out there with those personal opinions,
but just because I didn't feel like Jared's Stidham had
the ceiling and could I have been wrong yet Jared
Didn'm gonna come out played amazingly and then we would
(19:23):
have all had to reassess. But I was kind of
like you in the first hour. You pointed out that
the Patriots had been given a ton of Sunday sort
of yeah, primetime games, and I was like, man, what
in the world are they doing? I mean, I know
Belichick's a draw, but otherwise, this this Patriot team, it
doesn't have a lot of the draws that we've gotten
(19:44):
used to over the years. And now boom, you flipped
the switch, and I think you can make an argument, right.
I don't think it's a crazy argument that if you
had to draft five teams to watch this year in
the NFL, just from a pure entertainment perspective, The Tampa
Bay Buccaneer I think should be number one, and almost
everybody's list. I think you could make an argument with
(20:05):
Cam Newton coming back to uh TO to play in
the NFL, with Bill Belichick, you could make an argument
that the Patriots are number two on the list. Right, Like,
if you and I are sitting around right now sketching,
let's pretend that, like I like this exercise, Let's let's
do this, Let's do this, Let's do this this five
teams if we can. All right, So I'm gonna draft first.
(20:26):
I'm gonna take uh like you know, you just kind
of work through. I'm gonna take the Buccaneers first. Would
you agree with me that the Buccaneers are the most interesting?
All right? Then you go to the second most interesting team.
I can sketch you out a couple of options. Let
me give you a couple of them, and obviously everybody's
not going to agree, but I can tell you that
I think the Patriots are number two. I can tell
you that I think the Pittsburgh Steelers are number two
(20:49):
because Ben Roethlisberger's coming back, that defense has come on
a great deal. I'm intrigued to see whether Ben Roethlisberger
has anything left. I can make you a case for
the Pittsburgh Steelers as one of those five teams. I
can probably travel down to New Orleans. I could make
a case for Drew Brees. Maybe maybe because of all
the drama in the offseason, surrounding kneeling for the anthem
(21:11):
and everything else. In the fact that Patriots, I'm sorry,
the Saints have lost three straight playoff games on the
final play of the game, which is kind of unheard of.
I could go out West and I could say to you, hey,
what about the what about the situation with Jimmy Garoppolos
coming back? I could look at Kyler Murray and I
could say, hey, what about him? You just named like
(21:33):
six teams in a row, and none of them were
the ones I had written down myself. You could also
come back, and I'm sure a lot of people are saying,
this is the team that I would care about. You
could say the Baltimore Ravens and Lamar Jackson go to
Cleveland and you could say, Hey, what in the world's
gonna happen now? In year three with Baker Mayfield. We
could go down to Miami and say what's Fitzpatrick versus
(21:54):
two are gonna be like, uh, you still haven't named
one that I wrote down, and that's Green Bay with
the soul, Aaron Rode your situation, that with Jordan's love,
that's one of the top five as well. I mean
what I'm getting at is I'm not sure and and man,
I hope we don't have to worry about whether this
season is going to be played to be played. But
when you think about all of the drama, and I
(22:15):
didn't even go down to Dallas, got in his contract
situation and Ezekiel Elliott trying to bounce back after getting
his big deal, or I mean heck in Tennessee with
Ryan Tannehill getting a monstrous contract, Derrick Henry being franchise,
I mean, Philip Rivers in Indianapolis, I don't know. As
we sit here, Poise Gardner, Minshew and Minshew Mania, I'm
(22:39):
not sure. We haven't even talked about the defending champions
and they're similating to watch. Yeah, yeah, obviously everybody knows
what Patrick mahomes. But I mean, I'm not sure that
the NFL has ever had a better off season for
purposes of making as many teams interesting as they possibly
(22:59):
could be, right I mean, uh, you're talking about the
Houston Texans. What are they gonna be with? What is uh,
what is it gonna look like with Deshaun Watson without
DeAndre Hopkins? Right Like, I just went around almost the
entirety of the NFL, and I gave you pretty good
storylines almost everywhere right now, And I think, again, maybe Cam,
(23:21):
I would probably go this way. If if I'm working
through my five right now, I think I would go
Bucks one. I think in the two spot, I would
go my Homes just because I think he's the best
player in the NFL right now and he does things
and makes throws that really don't seem like they're possible.
I think in the three spot, i'd probably go Cam
(23:43):
and Belichick that combo. I think in the fourth spot,
I would go, uh, the Ravens because I am intrigued
to see what it's gonna look like with Lamar Jackson.
Is anybody gonna be able to catch up to him?
And then in the five spot, I think I would
go Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. That's my
five in order. Um, I think right now as I
sit kind of looking at the whole landscape of the NFL.
(24:05):
But guess what, there's about ten other teams, maybe fifteen
other teams that are right there, almost as intriguing as
the five that I just named. Oh yeah, and look
we yearly you have forty around turnover in terms of
teams that made the postseason the year before and then
the ones that make it that year. So there are
gonna be storylines we're not even thinking of right now
(24:27):
that are likely to pop up somewhere in some division.
So what it means is, please Lord, let there be
NFL football, because there is just so much to actually
get excited about on the field, and man alive, does
it feel good to actually say that out loud? Well,
and I just hope that it doesn't all get blown
(24:48):
with all the off field shenanigans, right Like, First, I
hope that we're going to be able to play. Second,
I hope that it's not going to be also political,
that the overall entertainment factor of the games themselves doesn't
become a subplot unfortunately to the drama surrounding what's going
to happen with the national anthem and everything else, because
(25:10):
I mean, that's honestly. In addition, to the fact that
I think people are desperate for fun, engaging football games
to be played, right, Like, I think there's just such
a demand out there for this stuff that But I
also think I'm not sure there's ever been a better
and more interesting series of stories coming into the season
(25:32):
than what we're seeing right now. Um, and to me,
Cam and the and the Patriots is just as enticing
almost of any storyline as there is. This is out
kicked the coverage with play Traffic. This is I'll kick
(25:57):
the coverage. Jason Martin, along with Clay Travis, was down
in Florida, but with Cam Newton news, he decided he
was He just wanted to talk about it quite frankly.
I'm on Twitter at j mart Radio, He's at Clay Travis. Clay,
what is reasonable for us to expect from Cam Newton
this year? I mean, that's the question, right, And that's
why the Patriots are getting him at such a bargain
(26:18):
basement price because and we talked about this a lot
on the program as we discussed Cam Newton in free agency,
because ultimately, Cam is uh. Since the Super Bowl, he's
been a very average quarterback in this league. And if
you want to to me, there's two different sides, right.
I always like to think about about players, almost like
(26:42):
their stocks people out there. No, if you follow me
on Twitter, I love thinking about the futures of companies.
I love thinking about when the draft happens. Okay, give
me a best case, worst case, most likely case scenario
for players. I can sketch you out a bull case,
which people who follow stock markets know that a bullish
case is a positive one. And I can also sketch
(27:04):
you out a barish case, which people who follow stocks
know would be a negative one. Right, so the bullish
case would be this. Cam Newton is now playing with
the greatest coach that has ever coached him in his career.
He is also playing in a situation where he is
healthy and with a with an offensive scheme and system
(27:28):
that has been designed to get the ball out of
his hands quickly, make relatively quick reads um and preserve
his overall health like we saw Tom Brady do for
most of his career. Um. Also, he has got a
brilliant offensive mind in Josh McDaniel's building and leading everything
(27:50):
surrounding his his offensive system. He has got a young,
talented running back which has been a bit enigmatic in
Sony Michelle. He's got a young talented receiver in to
kill Harry who did not perform very well but was
a first round pick. Um we already know Mohammed Sanu
has at times been really a pretty outstanding number two,
(28:14):
all right. Julian Edelman, if he's healthy, and he wasn't
healthy at the end of last year, has been a
guy who can get open underneath, who can get you
that third down catch to move the sticks. And we
know that again. The Patriots have pretty well proven that
they can block it up for anybody. And they're going
to have a scheme design brilliantly by Bill Belichick to
(28:38):
do enough to win every game. All right, That is
the bullish case. If that all comes to fruition, then
Cam Newton is going to be the still of the decade.
The Patriots are getting him for about what the Auburn
Tigers paid for him. There's a good joke for you
for SEC football there, right, all right, So that is
the bullish to be. Here's the bar Cam Newton has
(29:02):
been ever since the Super Bowl loss, a less efficient
and effective version of Tyrod Taylor, and Tyrod Taylor is
not anybody's idea of a quarterback that you want to
have leading your franchise. Even right now, for Charger fans
out there listening to us, they're kind of nodding like
(29:24):
he's not a bad player. Buffalo Bill fans know what
I'm talking about. Uh, he's a average quarterback in the
NFL at best, and he Tyrod Taylor has outperformed Cam
Newton since the Super Bowl game. So if you want
to buy into the bearish idea here, you can look
at the overall offensive skill position talent and you can say,
to kill Harry is a rare Patriots miss on the
(29:46):
offensive side of the ball at wide receiver Mohammed sannw
was covered up for his deficiencies. The Falcons knew that
he didn't have the the Jets anymore, that he didn't
have the ability. They got rid of him. Uh, they
would have kept with Matt Ryan if they thought he
had a lot left. We know that Julian Edelman has
been injured. He's aging. I think he's thirty four and
thirty five years old. He had a lot of drops
(30:09):
last year. He couldn't stay healthy. Uh. Cam Newton is
not a guy who makes really quick reads. That's been
a problem for him throughout his career. Uh. That's one
of the criticisms that Steve Smith levied against him, was
especially in Gold to ghost situations goal line first and
ten Uh, inside the red zone. He was not decisive
(30:29):
enough in his reads. He relies too much on his legs.
And he's now thirty one and he can't take hits anymore.
He's not gonna fit very well. And Josh McDaniel's system. Uh,
there isn't a lot of talent at tight end. There's
not going to be that security blanket for him, which
you relied on with Ed greg Olsen. Uh for a
long time with Carolina at running back, he wasn't able
(30:50):
to win at a high level with Christian McCaffrey. And
now he's got a much less talented back in Sony Michelle,
who seems a bit of a mystery in terms of
whether you can rely on him enough. And that defense
is aging and not able to win games anymore. And
so there's gonna be a lot more on Cam Newton's shoulders. Both.
That's pretty good cases, right that I just laid out
(31:12):
there and thinks for the Bullish positive case and for
the Bears case, and I think, like most things, the
answer is going to be somewhere in the middle. I
think Cam Newton has gas left in the tank. I
think he can be a quarterback in this league. But
I don't think that Bill Belichick has a magic wand
that he is gonna wait and that suddenly Cam Newton
is gonna come back to m v P form Cam Newton.
(31:35):
I think that the likelihood here is that right now,
the Patriots are a little bit over value in the
in the odds markets, Fox beet bumping their odds to
win UH the a f C C East up to
being favored UH. They also are around nine to one
I believe to win the a f C twenty two
one to win the Super Bowl. I think that's optimistic.
I think this is an eight Nate caliber Patriots team.
(31:59):
Eight Nate caliber teams can go six and ten, or
they can go tenant six, And I think they'll finish
right around five and Camp will do enough to get
another contract somewhere else, but not enough for all of
us take a step back and say, my god, this
guy still has m v P caliber talent. That's the
way that I would assess it. How about you. I
(32:19):
was actually doing some math during that last answer, which
is dangerous, but at least I had a device in
front of me. I wasn't trying to do it Longhand,
and I didn't have to show my work. But I
was looking at the last two years some advanced metrics
with Cam Newton, and I saw that of three seventy
past attempts, sixty two of those were deemed bad throws.
From an analytic standpoint, that turns out to be about
(32:42):
se that's just in the last two years, a lot
of that being a year where he did play more.
He had a much higher percentage. It was like thirty
one percent bad throws last year, but he barely played,
so those numbers are kind of inflated. So I was
looking more at the year before. But we know that
he's not his accuracy waivers, it's not particularly consistent, and
he's not walking into a Hall of Fame situation as
(33:05):
it relates to the people that are gonna be on
the field that he's going to be throwing. Two. That said,
I was looking at the schedule as well. It benefits
him to be in the division that he's in. I
would say he made it a little bit easier where
he was playing in the NFC South. He was dealing
with some pretty talented guys, especially with Matt Ryan and
(33:26):
Drew Brees being there basically his entire career. Uh that
he had to deal with with the Saints and the Falcons.
Now he's stepping in with Donald Tuah at some point,
certainly and Josh Allen, I would say that's an easier road. Uh.
You could ask Tom Brady. He would probably tell you
the same thing. Remember we played that game years ago,
Clay where I listed all the other quarterbacks of the
(33:48):
three teams during the Brady Belichick era, and it was
like forty some names between the Jets, the Dolphins, and
the Bills. So the thing here is, could they in
eight games and still somehow win the division? Do you
think that's even possible? Like if they win ten games,
I think that's an unbelievable season. That shows a lot
of I think that shows a lot of brilliance on
(34:10):
Belichick's part and probably means Cam Newton had a really
good season as well. I could. I don't know if
I can get to nine either, just because I know
that the cupboard is at least halfway bear right now
on that roster and I felt like they were going
for a full rebuild right up until about twelve hours ago.
I feel like this is a division that somebody wins
at nine and seven. Um. And and that would be
(34:33):
my way of assessing it. I think if you go
back and look at the Bills, I believe looking at
their schedule, they went one in five against playoff teams
last year. Uh. And if wrong on that Bill fans,
I apologize, but I think I'm correcting that one in
five with the only win being over the Tennessee Titans
in one of the ugliest games of the year. I
think that final was four teen seven, and the Titans
(34:55):
missed like four or five field goals in that game,
and we saw some the issues that Josh Allen still
has in the second half of that game against the
Houston Texans win. Let's be honest, the Bills basically gave
that game away. And so, UM, I'm not a believer
in Josh Allen. Now, I understand some of you are.
I'm not right now. I haven't seen enough from him.
(35:17):
He's athletic, which is crazy. I think a lot of
people were surprised by how athletic he is. He moves well. Uh.
And uh and he's able to extend plays with his legs,
and he's got a cannon for an arm right. He
has all the physical tools. He's really pretty freakish athlete.
But I'm just not sure that all that's gonna come
together for him. I think that's a team that relies
(35:39):
very much on their defense, and they want a lot
of close games. Last year and whenever they stepped up
in class, they tended not to play very well. So
I'm not a believer in the Bills. I like Sam
Donald at times when he can avoid mono, but I
just I don't know necessarily that I buy into Adam
Gaze or what they're building in New York. I like
(36:00):
what I see out of the Miami Dolphins, but I
probably think they're a year away from really being able
to be contenders with Brian Flores and so I think
there's a lot of decent parts in the a f
C East. But I think if you told me any
of these teams are gonna be nine and seven, I
would like their odds to win the division. I think
ten and six would certainly get it done, but I
(36:22):
think nine and seven may well get it done, And
so I don't like the value on as we'll talk
about the gambling odds a little bit more at the
later in the show, because I've got them in front
of Fox bet Year. I was looking at him up
this morning as we got ready for the show. But
I just don't like the odds on the favorites here
with the Patriots. I think we're buying in a lot.
(36:43):
The over under on Patriots wins right now is nine
and a half and that means, I mean easily out
there for everybody. I mean tenant six seems like I
could be a well of the season for the New
England Patriots without Tom Gray, and that's what they'd have
to do at least in order for you to catch
that ticket and win. I just think expectations are a
little bit high. I'd go under on the nine and
a half. I'd stick at nine and seven. Eight Mate
(37:06):
is the most likely outcome, just because I pulled this
up real quick before we get to the break, and
then we'll continue down this road and we get back.
But the wins for the Bills last year, Jets, Giants, Bengals,
that fourteen seven Titans game you mentioned, Dolphins, Redskins, Dolphins again, Broncos,
Cowboys Steelers, And that's it. That's not the not the
(37:31):
most look. You can only play who's on your se Cowboy? Yeah,
the Cowboy wins. So they did beat another Uh, well
they didn't make the playoffs. Sorry cowboy, you win eight
mate and choked it away. But I do think that
Cowboy win is probably the best win that they had
last season if you're a Bills fan and uh but
otherwise I was right. I think I think they went
one in five. It gets playoff teams in the and
that's not a murderers row. You just ran us through. No,
(37:53):
it was nine. And good for them for taking advantage
of that schedule. That's the first thing you do when
you become a good team is beat up some of
the bad ames. That's what the Bills were able to
do to get to the playoffs last year. Be sure
to catch live editions about Kicked the Coverage with Clay
Travis weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific
Thanks for listening to the best of OutKick the Coverage podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday morning from
six to nine am Eastern three to six am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for OutKick
the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream
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by searching f s R. This is the best of
OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Fox Sports Radio. Well,
(00:28):
Clay Travis is in Florida this week. I was supposed
to be at the helm of this program with Jeff
Schwartz Tuesday through Friday. My name is Jason Martin, host
of the Jason Martin Show here on Fox Sports Radio.
You might remember me from appearances on this very program
through the years as well. You can find me on
Twitter at j mart Radio. But even though he's on vacation,
(00:48):
here comes Cam Newton to the Patriots and that just
wasn't gonna work. So let us welcome in Clay Travis
from his palatial estate. We'll just call it down in Florida. Clay. Uh,
news just had to break when you left town, didn't Yeah,
it always seems like this. I think a couple of
years ago, we had the Urban Meyer News about about
(01:11):
you know, Zack Smith and everything surrounding that. When I
was up in Michigan, and there hasn't been a lot
of really i would say, big sports news in a while.
Now there's lots of news involving sports, but not a
story like this, which is pretty fantastic. I mean, the
NFL has got a ton of great storylines. And Cam
(01:31):
Newton to the Patriots to me is vintage Bill Belichick.
You get a potential potential All Star caliber player, all
Pro caliber player in Cam Newton who's still only thirty
one years old, at almost no cost. I feel good
about his chances to beat out Cam's chances to beat
out Jared's Didham and to beat out Brian Hoyo. Ware
(01:52):
to go wait to go out on a limb there, Clay. Yeah. Yeah,
So so that's a hot take for you, and uh
and there's almost no risk, right, I mean, if Cam
is not back healthy and he doesn't play very well,
then the Patriots just let him go and they go
back into the draft and maybe they go get into
Trevor Lawrence sweet Steaks or who knows what might happen,
(02:13):
or Bill Belle's that sames another Joel On you know,
sort of the reclaimed toy Factory list, right, Um, somebody
that can come out and make a tremendous difference for
the New England Patriots and what now appears to be
a pretty wide open a FCS. Do you believe or
not in Josh Allen? I still think the verdict is
(02:34):
very much out on how Josh Allen's gonna do with
the Bills. We don't know about Sam Donald, you know,
can you stay out of mono? Uh? He hasn't really
played enough games to be back confident in what he's
going to mean for the Jets. Who's going to start
the majority of the games for the Miami Dolphins. Is
it gonna be Ryan Fitzpatrick or is it gonna be
to Uh? This is a wide open division. And if
Cam Newton could come back. We're talking about a former
(02:56):
NFL m v P, a guy who was good enough
to get the Carol and the Panthers to seventeen and
one and a touchdown favorite in the Super Bowl, who
looked like he was poised to become the face of
the NFL. And since that Super Bowl game he has
been thoroughly mediocre. Uh, And now he gets to play
for the greatest coach in the history of the NFL.
(03:18):
And we know already what Bill Belichick has done with
Jimmy Garoppolo when he was healthy. We know what he's
done with Jacobe Burr said, we know we're done with
Matt Castle. I think it's fair to say, awesomely that
Camp has been way more accomplished than any of those
thres guys. And Belichick had a lot of success with
all those, to say nothing of all the success he
(03:39):
had with Tom Brady. So I love this move for
the Patriots. I love this move for Cam Newton. It's
very similar, it seems to me, to what Jamis Winston did,
except the difference. Cam Newton is going to be the
starter for the New England Patriots. He's betting on himself.
He's taking a lot less money than maybe he could
have made elsewhere to try prove that at thirty one
(04:01):
years old, when let's be honest, most NFL quarterbacks are
really just starting to come into their own that he's
not washed up, that he has a lot left. This
is vintage Belichick. I love the move by Cam. I
think this is just a splendid decision by the Patriot
and I think it gives them a legitimate chance. And
we'll talk about this maybe at the end of the hour.
(04:22):
I think it gives them a legitimate chance if you
look at the gambling odds to potentially make a move
in the in the a f C East, and when
yet another division title, just when the Bills, the jeff
and the Dolphins all thought the door was wide open
without without the without Tom Brady, Belichick goes out and
gets to steal. I love the move. Yeah, you know,
(04:42):
I think the only thing that surprised me was it
took this long, because months ago I thought, that's a
situation that makes a little bit of sense if you
think and you want to give Cam the opportunity. If
Cam is finally healthy, I mean, he's dealt with so
much through years. When things are going right, things can
go really right for you. When Cam Newton is your quarterback.
He has some impressive stats. He has not been impressive,
(05:05):
as you just mentioned, since the Super Bowl. But this
is what the Pats do. They did it with Ocho Cinco,
they did it with Antonio Brown. They will bring in
these glitzy guys and and Obviously Cam doesn't have the
baggage All four villain Randy Moss. Yeah, the list goes
on and off. People a lot of people believe, hey,
(05:25):
those guys have gotten nothing left left left and Belichick
goes out and gets a steal. And remember we're talking
about Cam Newton is like I said the m v
P from just a few years ago, but you mentioned
when things go well with Cam, he is a front
and running quarterback. It was they saw the same thing
happen with him at Auburn. Auburn wasn't very good the
(05:46):
year they went fourteen and oh, and he willed them
to a national championship and what I think was maybe
the best single year for a quarterback other than what
we saw from Joe Burrow. Right, Like, that's how good
Cam Newton was in college. He's been yearly that good
in the NFL. There aren't very many guys who have
won a Heisman Trophy and been in NFL m v P.
(06:06):
And Cam still only thirty one years old. And I
know he's taken a lot of hits in the NFL,
but he only played two games last year. He looks
like he's an incredible shape and now he gets to
play for the greatest coach in the history of the NFL.
To me, this is like one of those um, you know,
sort of great bar debates where you would sit around
and you would say, man, what would ex quarterback have
(06:29):
ever been capable of if they had gotten to play
with ex coach? Right, Cam Newton with the greatest coach
in NFL history. That is one of those you would
sit around and maybe argue about. I am thrilled. I'm
ecstatic I mean as a as an NFL fan to
kind of get this laboratory like uh experiment, to see
(06:50):
what's going to happen with Cam meeting Belichick. Yeah, And
one thing that had been discussed was how often the
Patriots were going to be in prime time when the
NFL schedule will came out, and whether or not that
was gonna backfire without Tom Brady there. How interested were
you gonna be after you saw this act a couple
of times. Well, now I think it's gonna do just
fine because everybody's gonna be curious to see what Cam
(07:12):
Newton looks like in the Patriots uniform. This this is
a camp miss because it is so low risk. This
is what the path to do they'll bring you in
and look, if it doesn't work, they'll just move on.
A lot of the names that I mentioned there in
that list of people they've brought in, bigger names, they
just haven't worked out, and they just move on from
them like they're not gonna pay him an exhaust A
lot of this is incentives Clay, and that's exactly right.
(07:34):
And I think one of the challenges, and we'll get
to this maybe a little bit later in the show,
is as excited as I am to see how Cam does.
This is still an offense without a lot of good weapons,
and so, uh, it's not like Cam is walking into
a gold mine. You know, Brady has got incredible tight
ends and wide receivers now down in Tampa Bay. One
reason why Brady left was that lack of weapons, and
(07:57):
I do think that's gonna be a challenge for Cam,
but I can't to see how that's how it plays out.
We're gonna talk more at the end of the hour
about the gambling odds and things like that as it
relates to Cam Newton. This is out kicked the coverage
with Clay Travis as usual with gets up ended at
(08:22):
the last possible second and the big news. Of course,
if you have not heard Cam Newton one year New
England Patriots. We bring in Clay Travis, who was going
to take today's show off right up until this news broke,
and he said, well, that ain't gonna happen, but he
is with his family on vacation down in Florida this week. Clay,
what about this is the most intriguing to you? Is
(08:44):
it the Belichick angle of this? Just in terms of
this has been all about Brady over this last couple
of months, and the Patriots have largely been not talked
about in any way. Now all of a sudden, everything
is centering around the New England Patriots in some way,
shape or form, whether it Brady versus Belichick or now
here's Belichick with a former NFL m v P as
(09:05):
a quarterback. Yeah. I think this just tells us that
the NFL storylines are compelling and uh and and unique
in a way that they haven't been in recent history.
And I mean, you just think pretty straightforwardly about Brady
and Belichick, arguably the greatest quarterback and the greatest coach
(09:27):
ever paired together for effectively a generation, and now they've
gone both in their own directions and if you were
sort of assessing who was going to have the better
post breakup career. It was a fascinating debate because the
benefit that Belichick has is he could theoretically coach six, seven,
eight more years, right, I mean, he could do it.
(09:48):
I don't know if he will, but he could do it.
Whereas I think most people out there would say, Okay,
Tom Brady's got to do whatever he's going to do
in the next two or three years at the most,
because he's gonna be forty three years old, and that
means that Brady has to strike now. He has to
win this post breakup right now. And it seemed like
(10:09):
you was right. He goes to Tampa Bay, Grant comes
out of retirement, You've already got O. J. Howard, You've
got Chris Godwin, you got Mike Evans, you got a
guy in Bruce Arians who seems to be really inventive
with his offensive system. You had a team that was
good enough on defense to make up for the fact
that Jamis Winston through thirty interceptions. You know, if Brady
(10:29):
could go out and just throw let's say, twenty four
touchdowns six interceptions, which is a fairly pedestrian year for him,
this is a team that should be good enough, especially
in an expanded NFL playoff picture, to potentially make the playoffs,
And a lot of people would say, see, Tom Brady
didn't need Bill Belichick in order to win. Conversely, it
seemed like Belichick was comfortable given the limited cap space
(10:51):
that they had. It seemed like Belichick was comfortable with
potentially rolling out Jared Stidham as a guy. And that
seemed like the height of arrogance for Bill Belichick to say,
I'm going to replace the guy who is the greatest
quarterback maybe in the history of the sport with a
quarterback that was the fourth round draft pick, and nobody
else really seemed to watch now one Now, I know
(11:11):
what happened with Drew Bledsoe being replaced by Tom Brady
in the past, and Belichick certainly believed history can repeat itself.
He found a good value in Jimmy Garoppolo, he found
a good value and at g Edgcobe Prisette, he found
a good value in Matt Castle in the games that
he's had to coach without Brady over the years. But
to me, this was I kind of got the sense
and maybe we should have been sophisticated enough to know
(11:32):
as sports fans this wasn't likely, But it almost felt
like Belichick was saying, Okay, this is kind of a
giveaway year, and that's the very anti everything that we've
come to expect from Belichick. But if you were gonna
try Jared stead about there, it definitely didn't feel like
he was making it as aggressive a play as normal
to try to win the division and continue that dominance
(11:52):
that he's had in the a f D East. And
then boom, he goes out and he gets an m
v P in the NFL for almost nothing, a thirty
one year old Cam Newton with a ton to prove,
and he gets an opportunity to replace one, uh stellar
quarterback with potentially another stellar quarterback, and he almost has
to pay nothing at all four him. This is vintage
Belichick and uh and I feel like in many ways
(12:16):
it's game on against Tom Brady in terms of who's
gonna win the break up. One thing that I was
actually thinking about as it related to the timing of
this by the Patriots is because of COVID and because
of not being in person with any of these people,
having to rely on videos and stuff that were articles
that were being written, and there were opinions out there
that said, you know, this is gonna harm cam because
(12:38):
he can't show to somebody in person what he's got.
But if you look at the Patriots, and they waited,
and they waited, and they waited, and then they struck.
And at this point, don't you think if they have
tried to do this three months ago or four months ago,
it would have cost them more potentially than it does
now because it just seems like they waited and they
still got exactly what maybe they were looking at three
(13:01):
or four months ago when they chose not to make
a quarterback selection in the draft. Well, I think when
it speaks to is how few quarterback positions are actually available.
And you saw Jamis Winston take almost nothing to go
be the backup of the New Orleans Saints. Andy Dalton
took a very small amount of money relatively speaking to
be the backup for the Dallas Cowboys. For a long
(13:22):
time in the NFL, we've talked about how there aren't
enough quarterbacks to fill all of the roster spots. Well,
this year, in particular, it seemed like there were a
lot more quarterbacks than there were available spots, and we
kept pointing to this Do England Patriot position and saying, look,
almost every team either has a guy that they know
(13:43):
is their guy at least starting, or they've got a
young quarterback that they're developing. There aren't very many options
out there. And to me, this is solidified by the
fact that you know, with Jamis Winston taking basically less
than a million dollar or a year and Cam Newton
taking an incentive laden contract it doesn't pay him very
(14:05):
much money at all either, that these guys are desperate
to still try and prove that they belong. And I
just thought it was interesting in the context of let's
say a Colin Kaepernick, who suddenly is now top of
mind for a lot of different teams. Kaepernick, Uh, would
he take less than a million dollars to play in
the NFL right now? I kind of doubt it. And
(14:27):
to me this is evidence of how desperately Jamis Winston
and Cam Newton really want to play still in the NFL.
And Jamis I understood more than Cam, just because again,
Cam just didn't look like he wanted to be there
at times, and he was so battered and he was
so beaten. But just watching him in that last game
(14:48):
when they finally pulled him and then we didn't see
him again last year, he looked awful, but he looked miserable.
He looked depressed. He looked like somebody that had just
wanted to go home, wanted to be anywhere else but
on the a ball field. So for him to fight
as hard as he has over this last stretch to
land a new job with a lot to prove, probably
(15:09):
in his own mind, just to say, hey, I can
still do this. There's still some of that dog in me.
That speaks a lot to Cam Newton. And I wasn't
sure he had this level of desire still to play football,
And I'm happy that that he's kind of proven me wrong,
at least so far. Yeah. I think that's the biggest takeaway, um,
is that you know it would be easy for Cam
(15:31):
new We even had this conversation on the show. Does
Cam Newton, who really doesn't have in theory a lot
to prove? Right? I mean, if you told anybody out
there right now, hey, your NFL resume is going to
have as follows. Your quarterback resume will have as follows
when you finish your career. You're gonna win a National Championship,
(15:52):
You're gonna win a Heisman Trophy, you're gonna win an
NFL MVP, and you are going to play in a
super Bowl. Yes, I know, Cam and probably still sits
around and thinks about what he could do differently in
that game against the Broncos and his legacy and life
because we define guys so frequently by winning a Super
(16:12):
Bowl at the quarterback position would be fundamentally different if
he had gone out and won that Super Bowl. But
to me, ultimately this is about more than anything else,
Cam Newton still having so much drive that he wants
to play even if he's not even gonna make any
(16:33):
money at all. He still feels like he has the
ability to go out and win a Super Bowl. And
if he has that ability, what better way to prove
it than to get to play for the best coach
in the history of the NFL. It's just a huge
win to me for Cam Newton. It's investing in yourself.
(16:53):
It's similar to me to the decision that Jamis Winston
made because Jamis, while he's not got a starting job,
he at least I know Taysom Hill is there as well,
but he can look at Sean Payton and say, man,
Sean Payton has proven that he's a great coach of quarterbacks.
We know Drew Brees is not going to play forever.
Somebody's got to be the next man up for the
New Orleans change. This is even better for Cam because
(17:16):
he gets to come in and be in theory, the
default guy if he's healthy. And uh, and I mean,
I just think it is a blockbuster smart play by
him to make that happen. Clay another thing, and Clay
is down in Florida. He is off this week. But
that sounds kind of odd because he's not off right now.
He is on with us via his phone from his
(17:37):
estate I guess you could say his condo down in
Florida with his family. But does this make And I'm
not saying he was unlikable before, because I don't think
that he was. At times. He's definitely a front running
kind of guy. That's something we've discussed for years on
this radio station and on this radio program itself. But
this makes him to me more routable. I know he's
going to a team that usually you want to hate,
(17:59):
but this move and you kind of contextualize it well
in your last answer, your last response when you talked about, hey,
he's gonna play for very little money because he's got
a lot of drive to show what he's capable of.
That makes me kind of want to see him succeed.
Doesn't it make you feel the same way. Yeah, I
think the Patriots with Cam are more intriguing than the
Patriots with Brady. And I don't mean that because I
(18:20):
think Camp's better. I just mean that because that's a
movie I feel like I've seen before. I know what
Brady and Belichick are gonna do. They're gonna stumble out
of the gates a little bit. People are gonna say
are they done or not? And then they're still gonna
find a way to win the a f C East.
We know Tom Brady is good, and look, this is
probably a good debate in general. I've been arguing for
a while if you told me I could only watch
(18:43):
one NFL team this year, and you just took, you know,
my personal fandom out of it, because I've got season
tickets and I root for the Tennessee Titans. But if
you took my personal team out of it, to me,
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But to me, the team I
was like almost the most least interested in watching if
(19:03):
Jared'stidham was going to be the quarterback was Bill Belichick
and the Patriots. Not not because like I I hate
Belichick or I hate the Patriots, although I know there's
a lot of you out there with those personal opinions,
but just because I didn't feel like Jared's Stidham had
the ceiling and could I have been wrong yet Jared
Didn'm gonna come out played amazingly and then we would
(19:23):
have all had to reassess. But I was kind of
like you in the first hour. You pointed out that
the Patriots had been given a ton of Sunday sort
of yeah, primetime games, and I was like, man, what
in the world are they doing? I mean, I know
Belichick's a draw, but otherwise, this this Patriot team, it
doesn't have a lot of the draws that we've gotten
(19:44):
used to over the years. And now boom, you flipped
the switch, and I think you can make an argument, right.
I don't think it's a crazy argument that if you
had to draft five teams to watch this year in
the NFL, just from a pure entertainment perspective, The Tampa
Bay Buccaneer I think should be number one, and almost
everybody's list. I think you could make an argument with
(20:05):
Cam Newton coming back to uh TO to play in
the NFL, with Bill Belichick, you could make an argument
that the Patriots are number two on the list. Right, Like,
if you and I are sitting around right now sketching,
let's pretend that, like I like this exercise, Let's let's
do this, Let's do this, Let's do this this five
teams if we can. All right, So I'm gonna draft first.
(20:26):
I'm gonna take uh like you know, you just kind
of work through. I'm gonna take the Buccaneers first. Would
you agree with me that the Buccaneers are the most interesting?
All right? Then you go to the second most interesting team.
I can sketch you out a couple of options. Let
me give you a couple of them, and obviously everybody's
not going to agree, but I can tell you that
I think the Patriots are number two. I can tell
you that I think the Pittsburgh Steelers are number two
(20:49):
because Ben Roethlisberger's coming back, that defense has come on
a great deal. I'm intrigued to see whether Ben Roethlisberger
has anything left. I can make you a case for
the Pittsburgh Steelers as one of those five teams. I
can probably travel down to New Orleans. I could make
a case for Drew Brees. Maybe maybe because of all
the drama in the offseason, surrounding kneeling for the anthem
(21:11):
and everything else. In the fact that Patriots, I'm sorry,
the Saints have lost three straight playoff games on the
final play of the game, which is kind of unheard of.
I could go out West and I could say to you, hey,
what about the what about the situation with Jimmy Garoppolos
coming back? I could look at Kyler Murray and I
could say, hey, what about him? You just named like
(21:33):
six teams in a row, and none of them were
the ones I had written down myself. You could also
come back, and I'm sure a lot of people are saying,
this is the team that I would care about. You
could say the Baltimore Ravens and Lamar Jackson go to
Cleveland and you could say, Hey, what in the world's
gonna happen now? In year three with Baker Mayfield. We
could go down to Miami and say what's Fitzpatrick versus
(21:54):
two are gonna be like, uh, you still haven't named
one that I wrote down, and that's Green Bay with
the soul, Aaron Rode your situation, that with Jordan's love,
that's one of the top five as well. I mean
what I'm getting at is I'm not sure and and man,
I hope we don't have to worry about whether this
season is going to be played to be played. But
when you think about all of the drama, and I
(22:15):
didn't even go down to Dallas, got in his contract
situation and Ezekiel Elliott trying to bounce back after getting
his big deal, or I mean heck in Tennessee with
Ryan Tannehill getting a monstrous contract, Derrick Henry being franchise,
I mean, Philip Rivers in Indianapolis, I don't know. As
we sit here, Poise Gardner, Minshew and Minshew Mania, I'm
(22:39):
not sure. We haven't even talked about the defending champions
and they're similating to watch. Yeah, yeah, obviously everybody knows
what Patrick mahomes. But I mean, I'm not sure that
the NFL has ever had a better off season for
purposes of making as many teams interesting as they possibly
(22:59):
could be, right I mean, uh, you're talking about the
Houston Texans. What are they gonna be with? What is uh,
what is it gonna look like with Deshaun Watson without
DeAndre Hopkins? Right Like, I just went around almost the
entirety of the NFL, and I gave you pretty good
storylines almost everywhere right now, And I think, again, maybe Cam,
(23:21):
I would probably go this way. If if I'm working
through my five right now, I think I would go
Bucks one. I think in the two spot, I would
go my Homes just because I think he's the best
player in the NFL right now and he does things
and makes throws that really don't seem like they're possible.
I think in the three spot, i'd probably go Cam
(23:43):
and Belichick that combo. I think in the fourth spot,
I would go, uh, the Ravens because I am intrigued
to see what it's gonna look like with Lamar Jackson.
Is anybody gonna be able to catch up to him?
And then in the five spot, I think I would
go Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. That's my
five in order. Um, I think right now as I
sit kind of looking at the whole landscape of the NFL.
(24:05):
But guess what, there's about ten other teams, maybe fifteen
other teams that are right there, almost as intriguing as
the five that I just named. Oh yeah, and look
we yearly you have forty around turnover in terms of
teams that made the postseason the year before and then
the ones that make it that year. So there are
gonna be storylines we're not even thinking of right now
(24:27):
that are likely to pop up somewhere in some division.
So what it means is, please Lord, let there be
NFL football, because there is just so much to actually
get excited about on the field, and man alive, does
it feel good to actually say that out loud? Well,
and I just hope that it doesn't all get blown
(24:48):
with all the off field shenanigans, right Like, First, I
hope that we're going to be able to play. Second,
I hope that it's not going to be also political,
that the overall entertainment factor of the games themselves doesn't
become a subplot unfortunately to the drama surrounding what's going
to happen with the national anthem and everything else, because
(25:10):
I mean, that's honestly. In addition, to the fact that
I think people are desperate for fun, engaging football games
to be played, right, Like, I think there's just such
a demand out there for this stuff that But I
also think I'm not sure there's ever been a better
and more interesting series of stories coming into the season
(25:32):
than what we're seeing right now. Um, and to me,
Cam and the and the Patriots is just as enticing
almost of any storyline as there is. This is out
kicked the coverage with play Traffic. This is I'll kick
(25:57):
the coverage. Jason Martin, along with Clay Travis, was down
in Florida, but with Cam Newton news, he decided he
was He just wanted to talk about it quite frankly.
I'm on Twitter at j mart Radio, He's at Clay Travis. Clay,
what is reasonable for us to expect from Cam Newton
this year? I mean, that's the question, right, And that's
why the Patriots are getting him at such a bargain
(26:18):
basement price because and we talked about this a lot
on the program as we discussed Cam Newton in free agency,
because ultimately, Cam is uh. Since the Super Bowl, he's
been a very average quarterback in this league. And if
you want to to me, there's two different sides, right.
I always like to think about about players, almost like
(26:42):
their stocks people out there. No, if you follow me
on Twitter, I love thinking about the futures of companies.
I love thinking about when the draft happens. Okay, give
me a best case, worst case, most likely case scenario
for players. I can sketch you out a bull case,
which people who follow stock markets know that a bullish
case is a positive one. And I can also sketch
(27:04):
you out a barish case, which people who follow stocks
know would be a negative one. Right, so the bullish
case would be this. Cam Newton is now playing with
the greatest coach that has ever coached him in his career.
He is also playing in a situation where he is
healthy and with a with an offensive scheme and system
(27:28):
that has been designed to get the ball out of
his hands quickly, make relatively quick reads um and preserve
his overall health like we saw Tom Brady do for
most of his career. Um. Also, he has got a
brilliant offensive mind in Josh McDaniel's building and leading everything
(27:50):
surrounding his his offensive system. He has got a young,
talented running back which has been a bit enigmatic in
Sony Michelle. He's got a young talented receiver in to
kill Harry who did not perform very well but was
a first round pick. Um we already know Mohammed Sanu
has at times been really a pretty outstanding number two,
(28:14):
all right. Julian Edelman, if he's healthy, and he wasn't
healthy at the end of last year, has been a
guy who can get open underneath, who can get you
that third down catch to move the sticks. And we
know that again. The Patriots have pretty well proven that
they can block it up for anybody. And they're going
to have a scheme design brilliantly by Bill Belichick to
(28:38):
do enough to win every game. All right, That is
the bullish case. If that all comes to fruition, then
Cam Newton is going to be the still of the decade.
The Patriots are getting him for about what the Auburn
Tigers paid for him. There's a good joke for you
for SEC football there, right, all right, So that is
the bullish to be. Here's the bar Cam Newton has
(29:02):
been ever since the Super Bowl loss, a less efficient
and effective version of Tyrod Taylor, and Tyrod Taylor is
not anybody's idea of a quarterback that you want to
have leading your franchise. Even right now, for Charger fans
out there listening to us, they're kind of nodding like
(29:24):
he's not a bad player. Buffalo Bill fans know what
I'm talking about. Uh, he's a average quarterback in the
NFL at best, and he Tyrod Taylor has outperformed Cam
Newton since the Super Bowl game. So if you want
to buy into the bearish idea here, you can look
at the overall offensive skill position talent and you can say,
to kill Harry is a rare Patriots miss on the
(29:46):
offensive side of the ball at wide receiver Mohammed sannw
was covered up for his deficiencies. The Falcons knew that
he didn't have the the Jets anymore, that he didn't
have the ability. They got rid of him. Uh, they
would have kept with Matt Ryan if they thought he
had a lot left. We know that Julian Edelman has
been injured. He's aging. I think he's thirty four and
thirty five years old. He had a lot of drops
(30:09):
last year. He couldn't stay healthy. Uh. Cam Newton is
not a guy who makes really quick reads. That's been
a problem for him throughout his career. Uh. That's one
of the criticisms that Steve Smith levied against him, was
especially in Gold to ghost situations goal line first and
ten Uh, inside the red zone. He was not decisive
(30:29):
enough in his reads. He relies too much on his legs.
And he's now thirty one and he can't take hits anymore.
He's not gonna fit very well. And Josh McDaniel's system. Uh,
there isn't a lot of talent at tight end. There's
not going to be that security blanket for him, which
you relied on with Ed greg Olsen. Uh for a
long time with Carolina at running back, he wasn't able
(30:50):
to win at a high level with Christian McCaffrey. And
now he's got a much less talented back in Sony Michelle,
who seems a bit of a mystery in terms of
whether you can rely on him enough. And that defense
is aging and not able to win games anymore. And
so there's gonna be a lot more on Cam Newton's shoulders. Both.
That's pretty good cases, right that I just laid out
(31:12):
there and thinks for the Bullish positive case and for
the Bears case, and I think, like most things, the
answer is going to be somewhere in the middle. I
think Cam Newton has gas left in the tank. I
think he can be a quarterback in this league. But
I don't think that Bill Belichick has a magic wand
that he is gonna wait and that suddenly Cam Newton
is gonna come back to m v P form Cam Newton.
(31:35):
I think that the likelihood here is that right now,
the Patriots are a little bit over value in the
in the odds markets, Fox beet bumping their odds to
win UH the a f C C East up to
being favored UH. They also are around nine to one
I believe to win the a f C twenty two
one to win the Super Bowl. I think that's optimistic.
I think this is an eight Nate caliber Patriots team.
(31:59):
Eight Nate caliber teams can go six and ten, or
they can go tenant six, And I think they'll finish
right around five and Camp will do enough to get
another contract somewhere else, but not enough for all of
us take a step back and say, my god, this
guy still has m v P caliber talent. That's the
way that I would assess it. How about you. I
(32:19):
was actually doing some math during that last answer, which
is dangerous, but at least I had a device in
front of me. I wasn't trying to do it Longhand,
and I didn't have to show my work. But I
was looking at the last two years some advanced metrics
with Cam Newton, and I saw that of three seventy
past attempts, sixty two of those were deemed bad throws.
From an analytic standpoint, that turns out to be about
(32:42):
se that's just in the last two years, a lot
of that being a year where he did play more.
He had a much higher percentage. It was like thirty
one percent bad throws last year, but he barely played,
so those numbers are kind of inflated. So I was
looking more at the year before. But we know that
he's not his accuracy waivers, it's not particularly consistent, and
he's not walking into a Hall of Fame situation as
(33:05):
it relates to the people that are gonna be on
the field that he's going to be throwing. Two. That said,
I was looking at the schedule as well. It benefits
him to be in the division that he's in. I
would say he made it a little bit easier where
he was playing in the NFC South. He was dealing
with some pretty talented guys, especially with Matt Ryan and
(33:26):
Drew Brees being there basically his entire career. Uh that
he had to deal with with the Saints and the Falcons.
Now he's stepping in with Donald Tuah at some point,
certainly and Josh Allen, I would say that's an easier road. Uh.
You could ask Tom Brady. He would probably tell you
the same thing. Remember we played that game years ago,
Clay where I listed all the other quarterbacks of the
(33:48):
three teams during the Brady Belichick era, and it was
like forty some names between the Jets, the Dolphins, and
the Bills. So the thing here is, could they in
eight games and still somehow win the division? Do you
think that's even possible? Like if they win ten games,
I think that's an unbelievable season. That shows a lot
of I think that shows a lot of brilliance on
(34:10):
Belichick's part and probably means Cam Newton had a really
good season as well. I could. I don't know if
I can get to nine either, just because I know
that the cupboard is at least halfway bear right now
on that roster and I felt like they were going
for a full rebuild right up until about twelve hours ago.
I feel like this is a division that somebody wins
at nine and seven. Um. And and that would be
(34:33):
my way of assessing it. I think if you go
back and look at the Bills, I believe looking at
their schedule, they went one in five against playoff teams
last year. Uh. And if wrong on that Bill fans,
I apologize, but I think I'm correcting that one in
five with the only win being over the Tennessee Titans
in one of the ugliest games of the year. I
think that final was four teen seven, and the Titans
(34:55):
missed like four or five field goals in that game,
and we saw some the issues that Josh Allen still
has in the second half of that game against the
Houston Texans win. Let's be honest, the Bills basically gave
that game away. And so, UM, I'm not a believer
in Josh Allen. Now, I understand some of you are.
I'm not right now. I haven't seen enough from him.
(35:17):
He's athletic, which is crazy. I think a lot of
people were surprised by how athletic he is. He moves well. Uh.
And uh and he's able to extend plays with his legs,
and he's got a cannon for an arm right. He
has all the physical tools. He's really pretty freakish athlete.
But I'm just not sure that all that's gonna come
together for him. I think that's a team that relies
(35:39):
very much on their defense, and they want a lot
of close games. Last year and whenever they stepped up
in class, they tended not to play very well. So
I'm not a believer in the Bills. I like Sam
Donald at times when he can avoid mono, but I
just I don't know necessarily that I buy into Adam
Gaze or what they're building in New York. I like
(36:00):
what I see out of the Miami Dolphins, but I
probably think they're a year away from really being able
to be contenders with Brian Flores and so I think
there's a lot of decent parts in the a f
C East. But I think if you told me any
of these teams are gonna be nine and seven, I
would like their odds to win the division. I think
ten and six would certainly get it done, but I
(36:22):
think nine and seven may well get it done, And
so I don't like the value on as we'll talk
about the gambling odds a little bit more at the
later in the show, because I've got them in front
of Fox bet Year. I was looking at him up
this morning as we got ready for the show. But
I just don't like the odds on the favorites here
with the Patriots. I think we're buying in a lot.
(36:43):
The over under on Patriots wins right now is nine
and a half and that means, I mean easily out
there for everybody. I mean tenant six seems like I
could be a well of the season for the New
England Patriots without Tom Gray, and that's what they'd have
to do at least in order for you to catch
that ticket and win. I just think expectations are a
little bit high. I'd go under on the nine and
a half. I'd stick at nine and seven. Eight Mate
(37:06):
is the most likely outcome, just because I pulled this
up real quick before we get to the break, and
then we'll continue down this road and we get back.
But the wins for the Bills last year, Jets, Giants, Bengals,
that fourteen seven Titans game you mentioned, Dolphins, Redskins, Dolphins again, Broncos,
Cowboys Steelers, And that's it. That's not the not the
(37:31):
most look. You can only play who's on your se Cowboy? Yeah,
the Cowboy wins. So they did beat another Uh, well
they didn't make the playoffs. Sorry cowboy, you win eight
mate and choked it away. But I do think that
Cowboy win is probably the best win that they had
last season if you're a Bills fan and uh but
otherwise I was right. I think I think they went
one in five. It gets playoff teams in the and
that's not a murderers row. You just ran us through. No,
(37:53):
it was nine. And good for them for taking advantage
of that schedule. That's the first thing you do when
you become a good team is beat up some of
the bad ames. That's what the Bills were able to
do to get to the playoffs last year. Be sure
to catch live editions about Kicked the Coverage with Clay
Travis weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific
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