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June 29, 2020 82 mins

Clay Travis and Jason Martin react to the Patriots signing Cam Newton and how this was a vintage Belichick move. The guys discuss how Vegas views the Patriots signing Cam Newton and Clay says he isn't rushing to put his money down on Cam and the Patriots. Clay and Jason share their thoughts on how the signing of Cam Newton intensifies the debate about who will win the break up between Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. 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, how many wins he expects them to have and why this will be a make or break year for Cam Newton.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Clay Travis Look podcast breaking down here. You can hear
me talking from my phone cam. Newton news happened. I
was down in Florida. I was thinking about taking Monday
off because I'm down here for the Fourth of July holiday.
But I said, you know what, I gotta hop on.
I gotta hang out with j mar. We gotta talk
about this camp, Newton news and more. This is the

(00:20):
Out Kicked Podcast. Want to let you know, as always,
give us five stars. You get an autographed copy of
my book. I hope all of you are having a
fantastic week. Podcast begin now. I'll kick the Coverage with
Clay Travis live every weekday morning from six to nine
a m e stone three to six am Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for OutKick the

(00:40):
Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us
live every morning on the i Heart Radio app by
searching fs are you're listening to Fox Sports Radio. Well,
Clay Travis is in Florida this week. I was supped
us to be at the helm of this program with

(01:02):
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,
here comes Cam Newton to the Patriots, and that just
wasn't gonna work. So let us welcome in Clay Travis

(01:24):
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
you know, Zach Smith and everything surrounding that. When I
was up in Michigan, and there hasn't been a lot

(01:45):
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
Newton to the Patriots to me, is vintage Bill Belichick.
You get a potential potential All Star caliber player, all

(02:08):
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. Way
to go, way 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

(02:29):
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 up get
into Trevor Lawrence sweet Steaks or who knows what might happen,
or Bill bellots that things another jewel on, you know,
sort of the reclaimed toy Factory list, right, Um, somebody

(02:50):
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 FC East. Do you believe
or not in Josh Allen? I still think the verdict
is 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 moto? Uh? He hasn't really
played enough games to be that confident in what he's

(03:12):
gonna 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 NFL m
v P, a guy who was good enough to get
the Carolina Panthers to seventeen and one and a touchdown
favorite in the Super Bowl, who looked like he was

(03:34):
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. And we know already
what Bill Belichick has done with Jimmy Garoppolo when he
was healthy. We know what he's done with Jacobi Burce said,
we know we're done with Matt Castle. I think it's

(03:56):
fair to say us that Camp has been and way
more accomplished than any of those threse guys. And Belichick
had a lot of success with all those to say
nothing all the success he 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

(04:19):
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 to
prove it at thirst one 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

(04:41):
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. 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 us,
when the Bills, the jett and the Dolphins all thought

(05:03):
the door was wide open without without without Tom Brady,
Belichick goes out and get to steal. I love the move. Yeah,
you know, 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

(05:24):
with so much through the 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, 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

(05:45):
doesn't have the baggage off for villain Randy mos. Yeah,
the list goes on and off. People. A lot of
people believe, hey, those guys have gotten nothing left left
left and Belichick goes out and gets a steel And
remember we're talking about Cam Newton is like I said
the m v P from just a few years ago.

(06:05):
But you mentioned when things go well with Cam, he
is a front running quarterback. It was they saw the
same thing happen with him at Auburn. Auburn wasn't very
good the 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

(06:25):
how good Cam Newton was in college. He's been nearly
that good in the NFL. There aren't very many guys
who have won a Heisman Trophy and been in NFL
M v P. And Cam still only thirty one years old.
And I know he's taking 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

(06:47):
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 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

(07:07):
you would sit around and maybe, aren't you about I
am thrilled. I'm ecstatic. I mean as a as an
NFL fan to kind of get this laboratory, you like,
uh experiment to see 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 came out, and whether

(07:29):
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 Newton looks like in the Patriots uniform.
This this is a can't 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

(07:50):
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 All of this is incentives Clay. That's exactly right.
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.

(08:10):
This is still an offense without a lot of good weapons,
and so 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 I
do think that's gonna be a challenge for Cam. But
I can't wait to see how that how it plays out.
We're gonna talk more at the end of the hour

(08:32):
about the gambling odds and things like that as it
relates to Cam Newton's outkicked the coverage with Clay Travis

(09:14):
Jason Martin along with Clay Travis. He's down in Florida.
I've got the helm for the rest of the week
with Jeff Schwartz. And you know, I had Clay on
my program on The Jason Martin Show, which air Sunday
mornings here on Fox Sports Radio three to six am
Eastern time, if you're up early or if you were
up late, and he joined me for about twenty three minutes,
and it was a really interesting conversation and a lot

(09:34):
of folks reacted to us, and those that heard it said,
this should be honor at a different time. We really
wish more people could hear this, so well, your wish
is our command. We're gonna make it possible for you.
Here is my conversation with the one and only Clay
Travis from the Jason Martin Show just a day ago.
Enjoy Clay. I would ask you how you're doing, but

(09:57):
I know that the answer you're rolling right now. I'm excited. Um,
you know, people obviously who hear me do the radio
show during the morning. I mean, I am just super
super excited about bringing in Jason Whitlock. It's a busy time.
It's a crazy time for the country in general. Uh,
the OutKick website has exploded, the overall radio program. You know,

(10:22):
Don Martin and Scott Shapiro have done a phenomenal job
building out what I think is candidly the greatest national
sports talk radio collection of talent that's ever existed, all
day long, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,
on this program, in this network. And uh, and there's
just a lot of things going on, even without sports

(10:43):
going on. But I got my fingers crossed that everything's
gonna happen here in July, that we're gonna be able
to bring back sports major League Baseball, NBA hockey coming soon,
that we're gonna have college football in the NFL, that
all that's gonna happen, that we'll have the lock it
In television show back sooner rather than later. I would
like to think so, because, Uh, the last day that
we did that show was Rudy Gobert um that the

(11:06):
day that he walked off the court was the last
day that Wednesday, I think it was that we ever
did a show for for lock It In. So I'm
hopeful my television show will be back soon and uh
and and certainly in the meantime, I'm excited about what
we're building an out kick. I want to discuss kind
of the stay of the media with you a little
bit here. And I heard Adam Corolla said this a

(11:26):
couple of weeks ago, and I've been thinking about it
pretty staunchly ever since. He talked about how the difference
between him and Jimmy Kimmel, for example, I mean, the
two of them are friends. They worked on The Man
Show forever, and then Jimmy Kimmel went to Hollywood route
and now he's, you know, hosting Emmy's and everything else.
But he's also in a controversy with the blackface deal
with Karl Malone and everything else. And the question was like,

(11:47):
why did Kimmel go one way? And why has Adam
Corolla been able to go the direction that he's been
able to go. And Corolla's response was, I am talking
to you right now from a studio in a building
that I own, with equipment that I own, on a
platform that I built. And basically his implication was, and
his indicator was, we are moving to a spot where

(12:09):
if you don't own every bit of your content to
some degree or even the means of distribution, then you
are beholding to other people. And one thing that out
Kick I believe has had since the beginning is a
fully independent vision. That's why you can bring on at
Jason Whitlock and you can do whatever it is that
you want and say all the things that you want

(12:31):
because of that. But do you look at the larger
landscape and wonder where we're going as it relates to
the freedom to disseminate ideas that are not deemed acceptable
by whoever the overlords are in media at this point. Well,
I yeah, there's a lot in there, and I think
it's super smart. And well, I did Adam Corolla show

(12:53):
here in Nashville UM as his special guest at Zaney's
UM and we had a full house for the at
Live podcast and people seem to really enjoy our conversation
and I've been a fan of Adam Krola for a
long time, and I think what he hit on is
what you've seen happen with Joe Rogan, what you saw
happen with Bill Simmons, to a certain extent, what you've

(13:14):
seen with the rise of bar Stool. And I think
what you certainly are going to see as out kit
continues to expand is authenticity is rare. And I think
authenticity is rare because regardless of what your job is,
there are so many people out there. First of all,
hopefully you still have a job, because so many people
don't have jobs. But for the people who do have jobs,

(13:37):
there is a great deal of fear out there in
the country, I think from people that, oh my god,
am I gonna get fired for something that I put
on Facebook or something that I Instagram or something that
I tweet or along those lines. And that fear is
because the decisions of a major corporation can be arey

(14:00):
arbitrary and capricious. I mean, there there are probably a
lot of people out there listening to us right now
who are like, man, I don't know why I got
laid off and somebody else got to keep their job.
Or why that person got fired and the other person
didn't in an economically difficult and strained relationship. And when
I started out kick nine years ago, I never would

(14:21):
have known what it was going to grow into. But
I had already seen enough to know that I didn't
want to give anybody else the ability to control my future,
and and that that might have been a certain level
of just understanding the necessity for creative freedom. And you
know this, I mean, I think it's been invaluable. Most

(14:43):
people have one job, and if you have one job,
no matter what you may make a year to do
that one job, you have no freedom to do anything else.
And that's particularly the case in sports media, and I
think it's a case in media in general, where so
many people hold as tightly as they can to the

(15:06):
job that they have and they don't want to create
any kind of a stir that might cause them to
lead lose that job. And I don't know what it
is about me to not be concerned about that. Even
when I was in the early part of my career,
I wasn't bothered by reaction. But I think what has

(15:27):
happened is social media has made it's so much easier
for everybody to get in touch with your boss, right.
I don't mean your boss in particular, Jamart, I just
mean your boss in a colloquial or your sense. Right.
So if you're out there and you are Jim who's
working at Walmart, somebody can track you down and be like, oh,

(15:49):
do you know what Jim who's working at Walmart said
on Facebook? I'm going to tell your boss, and the
boss finds out about it, and the boss looks at
the Facebook post and all this like different stuff happens
from there. And I think that is just if you
don't own your own business, at some point, you have
to be afraid that you're going to be called into

(16:12):
the office and you might be let go for something
that you said or did. And when you own out
kick like I do, or own your own business, the
worst case scenario is you might lose a lot of
money because the business might fail. But lacking the business failing,
it doesn't cost that much money to put a website up, Like,
there's never a point in time. Even if I wasn't

(16:32):
able to do the radio show, even if I wasn't
able to do the television show, even if nobody wanted
to have me on as a guest. I could still
have a massive audience through my own website, and there's
a certain level of freedom and comfort that comes from
that that I think Adam Corola was getting to. And
I gave you a long answer because I think it's
a smart question. But I do believe controlling the means
of your distribution and the means of your primary income

(16:56):
is the only way you can feel comfortable about having
total creative freedom today in society. How many people do
you think that work in this industry don't say what
they actually believe. I mean, the reason why you don't
necessarily have to go to ESPN to watch any of
the debate shows one because they're contrived, but too because

(17:16):
I already I know what the take is gonna be
the second the story is out there. Like once you
see what the news is, you can say, Okay, well
they're gonna be here. That doesn't mean that I automatically
want to be on the other side. I'm gonna actually
look at this. I'm gonna look at this story objectively.
I'm gonna figure out exactly what I think about it.
But we've reached a place where I know exactly where
the masses in this industry are gonna go before they

(17:39):
ever actually write anything, before they go on the radio.
That to me is a gigantic problem. And I still
believe a lot of them are just saying what they
feel like they have to say, and then quietly they
think something else. It's like the guys that voted for Trump.
We talked about this, We joked about this on Outcake
years ago. A lot of guys went in and voted
for Trump, told their wife they voted for Hillary. Once

(18:00):
you get behind that closed door, you can actually have
your own opinion. It just feels like once the cameras
are on, or once your website begins, not yours directly,
but somebody's, they're not saying all of what they could say,
or there there may be not even representing the positions
they actually wish they could believe in. Well, I remember
the I guess it would have been what the Wednesday

(18:21):
after Donald Trump won four years ago, when we were
on this program, we opened up phone lines. Yeah, we
opened up phone lines. I mean because it was such
a huge story and uh and obviously it had only finished,
you know, a couple of hours before the Trump had
only spoken a couple of hours before we actually uh,

(18:41):
we actually started the show, but I thought it was
an interesting angle. I was just like, hey, open phone lines.
If you told your wife you voted for Hillary and
you actually voted for Donald Trump, call in and tell
us your story, and we immediately had loaded lines and uh,
And I just I found that to be so entertainingly

(19:02):
ridiculous that there was a huge number of men out
there that may have waited in line with their wives.
They said, I got you voting for Hillary, and then
they called in and said, actually, I couldn't do it.
I voted for Trump, right. Um. And I think what
happens is that this is what is really kind of remarkable,
and I'm doing this. I really think this is true.

(19:24):
I don't believe there is a single person in sports
media who has publicly said they voted for Donald Trump
and works at ESPN, Fox, CBS or NBC in sports.
I think I am correct in that. Now you guys

(19:45):
can tweet me if you can think of someone. I'm
not saying there aren't conservatives that have maybe you know
they're kind of conservative. No, I'm saying, like someone who
has publicly come out, who currently is on air at ESPN,
SE b S, Fox, or NBC, the four major broadcast
networks in this country, ESPN, SLASH, ABC. I don't think

(20:10):
there is a single person who has come out and
said they voted for Donald Trump. That's despite the fact
that the you know, country basically in and we'll see
what happens in but is nearly evenly divided. My question
would be, if you're going to get political as many
different sports networks have, how is it possible that you

(20:34):
can have all of those people and none of them
are publicly Trump supporters. Seems crazy to me? Right, um,
And so I I don't I don't think I know this.
There are tons of people out there that you watch,
that you like, that voted for Donald Trump and are

(20:54):
terrified to say that they voted for Donald Trump because
they're afraid they might lose their job, And that to
me is kind of crazy. And they were never terrified
to say, hey, I voted for Obama. I don't really
remember people being terrified to say they voted for George W. Bush.
I may be wrong, but it almost feels like, you know,

(21:15):
two thousand feels like it might as well have been,
you know, in terms of how far away it feels
in terms of our national discourse now. But but certainly
in and I don't think they would have been afraid
by the way, they certainly weren't to say they were
voting for Hillary. There were a lot of people who
and they're probably a lot of people listening to us

(21:36):
right now, who don't feel comfortable saying at their place
of work that they voted for Trump, and they did.
I don't remember there ever being a president, certainly not
in my life, who had more supporters who didn't feel
like they could comfortably say they supported him, which, by
the way, I think actually works in many ways towards

(21:57):
Trump's favor, because it just further uh, it further illustrates
why the people feel like they need to vote for Trump,
because they may even be able to say it publicly,
but at least privately when they get into a voting booth,
they don't have to answer for anybody else over what
they believe. You know. I sit around and I I
think about the media and the way in which they

(22:20):
approach their jobs, and it feels to me increasingly I
haven't been on social media and over three weeks, and
I just it's it seems to me that even though
the public. You look at the numbers, A whole lot
of public is not chilling on Twitter all day, but
the media is. And it just seems it feels like

(22:40):
they're just it's blue check trying to appease other blue check,
Like all day long on Twitter, it's just okay, well,
how can I get Like, I'm I don't know, uh,
Stuart Mandel and I'm just throwing him out there just
because he's the first name it came to mind, not
because he's necessarily guilty of this, but I'm Stewart Mandel.
What can I say that's gonna impress Bruce Feldman, you
know what I'm saying? And like it's like there, it's

(23:01):
this same it's this ecosystem of them in an echo chamber,
all talking amongst themselves to get affirmation from each other. Like,
make no mistake, I don't care what your opinion is
in terms of whether or not I can sit down
and have a conversation with you. I learned so much
from people coming from opposing viewpoints, as long as you

(23:21):
respect me and respect my ability to have mine. But
it just seems like the group think pops up on
social media because these people are actually just trying to say, hey,
look at me from my own colleagues. It becomes kind
of a cesspool. Well, I think sports media in general
is even more of groupthink than let's say, the political

(23:43):
media would be, because whether or not you are a
Democrat or Republican, or an independent, or conservative or liberal
or however you identify yourself, there are a ton of
people that at least will argue about politics. Right, so
there's a Supreme Court ruling, But what do people think, Well,
you can get a conservative opinion or you can get
a liberal opinion. Sports media is not like that. Sports

(24:07):
media is driven to basically require consensus, and if you
step outside of the consensus, which is overwhelmingly far left wing,
then you are denigrated. And I think that's really unhealthy.
And and I mean that in the context of not

(24:29):
like who the greatest quarterback is, because you can have
a debate about that, although there still needs to be
a consensus, and if your debate, if your opinion is
a little bit outside the realm, then then you are
then you are ostracized in many ways. But I mean,
like the National Women's Soccer League decides that they are

(24:50):
gonna kneel and Alexei Lawless, to his credit, comes out
and says, hey, by the way, standing is now the
bravest thing to do because it's what the fewest people
are doing, right, And immediately the blue checkmark brigade on
on Twitter comes for him and they are incredibly offended

(25:11):
that he would point out something that's true. But it's like, no, no, no.
The consensus opinion is, oh, these girls are also brave
for what they did for taking a knee today. And
if your take is well, actually, the brave thing to
do would have been to be one of those women
and stand up and say, you know what I stand
for the national anthem. That doesn't mean that I don't

(25:32):
respect other people's rights or opinions not to That would
have been the brave opinion right as opposed to kneeling.
But that's not an acceptable opinion to have. And so
I think sports media in general spends a great deal
of time policing itself for quote unquote acceptable opinions. And

(25:52):
if you have an unacceptable opinion, people come after you
and massive numbers. Now, I have opinions that are different
than a lot of the consent his opinions, um, and
I think our audience at out Kick has become so
substantial that a lot of people are afraid to come
after me because they know that my audience has got

(26:13):
my back, and uh, and I do think that's helpful.
What I would say in general is two of people
post on Twitter. That's one in every fifty uh, one
in every fifty people is not very representative of the
overall American marketplace. And so I spend very little time

(26:33):
reading what other people say in response to my opinions.
I use Twitter to share my opinions and advertise places
where you can find my opinion. But I'm not the
person who's going to get into, uh the mentions or
like God forbid, get into an argument that goes on
a long time, going back and forth with someone. It's

(26:55):
just not a very productive use of time, especially not
a hundred and eighty characters at a time. I just
feel like opinions have become news and it's not as much.
Sometimes it's not about bias in the coverage itself. It's
bias in what gets covered, and that that sends a
lot of stories, Like to remember the Doug Adler story.

(27:17):
We had Doug Adler on out there years ago. The
Venus Williams a guerrilla warfare and all that, and just
the reaction to that, and how many people picked it
up and how many people didn't, the reaction to that,
and then the reaction to You talk about Kaepernick, or
you can talk about any number of other stories that
fit a certain agenda or fit what seems to be
acceptable right now via that agenda. Those things are all

(27:39):
just out there at all times. I mean that same
thing you said about Alexei Lawless. Yeah, that might have
offended some people that were on one side, but it
also offended me. When Brett Farv compared Colin Kaepernick to
Pat Tillman earlier this week, Yeah, it was a ludic
It was a ludicrous, I mean, utterly insane position for
him to adopt. Is this going to get better at work?

(28:00):
There's something out there called the pendulum theory. There was
a book called the Pendulum, which says that things that
happened now are explained by things that happened before because
a lot of times their reactions to those things, like
the reason Trump was elected is a direct reaction to Obama.
The pendulum was on one side and then it went
to basically somebody that's nobody like Obama in any way

(28:20):
in terms of his education or the way in which
he used his education or the way he's worked his way,
and public service and non public service and everything else.
The pendulum effect, is this thing actually gonna swing back? Now?
You're doing things differently, You and Whitlock and a select
few others are doing things differently against the rest, and
you're you're finding success in that. A lot of people

(28:41):
that are doing the same thing in all walks are
finding success. But are we going to see the pendulum
swing back to where the media or some parts of
the sports media begin to start following your lead or
following some kind of a trailblazing lead, or is this
just gonna continue to get worse because that's spirit of
the age. Well, I think it depends on business, right.

(29:03):
I mean, the markets ultimately decide, They decide everything, and
so you know, election is just a big market, right um,
where everybody gets to vote on what direction they think
the market should go. And so I'll give you a
couple of data points. On Wednesday night, ESPN did a
Social Justice Warrior Special Summit or something like that. Yes,

(29:28):
some of whatever it was they gave over the entire
evening to a discussion on ESPN for social justice warrior
issues what I would call woke center programming, right, nothing
to do by and large with sports itself. ESPN posted
a twenty five year ratings low. As far back as

(29:49):
you can go to, never had fewer people ever watched
ESPN in prime time than watched it on Wednesday. All right,
that's pretty unbelievable. So ultimately, what does that tell me?
If I'm an executive, That tells me the best way
for me to sell my product to the largest possible

(30:12):
audience is not to put on programming like that, right,
I mean that's just straightforward. People don't look to ESPN
for social justice warriors. I mean I don't even think
they looked to sports in general for that. And by
and large, and so Twitter does. Twitter would have loved
that programming. To put in context, Jason Martin the audience,

(30:34):
a hundred thousand people watched ESPN programs that night better
than that? Yeah? Yeah? And also, I mean that's fewer
people than watch a game in the Big House or
Neil and States or Tuscaloosa. We're talking about a nation
of three thirty million people. Literally everybody votes with their

(30:59):
with the or time right, like, how are we going
to spend time? So I think what happened when the
NFL got too political? I think what will happen when
the NBA if they get too political. Is it's gonna
blow back on them because people are gonna say, fans, Hey,
The reason why I'm choosing to spend my free time
with you is because this is not very serious stuff.

(31:21):
Sports is the toy chest of life. I want distraction,
I want entertainment, and if you're gonna turn sports into
politics by any other name, I'll go watch Netflix, or
I'll watch Amazon Prime, or I'll go watch my favorite
box set movies as opposed to sitting around and watching sports.
That was my conversation with Clay Travis from the Jason

(31:43):
Martin Show, which you can hear right here on Fox
Sports Radio Sunday mornings three to six am Eastern Time. Clai,
of course down in Florida. Eddie Garcia, this is outkicked
the coverage with Clay Travis, Jason Martin, Clay Travis with

(32:12):
you here on this Monday. Clay was going to take
the entire week off, but Cam Newton news, Look, this
guy plays hurt Clay plays hurt, And by hurt, I
mean he's on vacation, He's in Florida and he's still
here via his cell phone right now from his palatial estate. Clay,
I know you're the gambling guy. What have you seen
so far in terms of what Cam Newton to the

(32:33):
Patriots on this one year incentive laden deal means from
a Vegas perspective, Yeah, the numbers came and moved in
a fairly substantial fashion. Uh, dollars wise in the Patriots favor. Um,
I'm looking right now at Fox Bet. The Patriots are
even money to win the a FC East, with the

(32:53):
Bills a little bit more of an underdog behind them,
and you've got the Jets and the Dolphin still as
substantial underdogs. And I believe you have the numbers in
front of you right now. But the Super Bowl odds
and the a f C odds, if I'm not mistaken,
there now twenty to one to win the Super Bowl
from roughly to one, and they now are ten to

(33:15):
one to win the a f C. And what I
would say, Yeah, what I would say the gambling odds
have told us, first of all, is there's a lot
of belief in how good of a head coach Bill
Belichick is, and that's relatively rare in the NFL. In general.
Matters a lot in college, but by and large, there's

(33:36):
not very often a big belief in a head coach.
But Belichick not only has he won a lot, but
he has an absolute tongue with Tom Brady and he's
done it well. Garoppolo and to Cookee Pursett and Matt
Castle for the guy in New England has been a
covering FO And now that's a quarterback that was capable

(33:58):
of winning. And then I'll and so for me, like
I said earlier on the show, this is such a
vent it's Belichick move because I mean it's just thrilling
to see what he's going to be capable. Let's look,
I mean, I think everybody out there, uh and I
think Belichick and Brady if they were both being honest
to those kind of looking at each other almost like

(34:20):
a couple that breaks up, Um, you know, like you pretend, oh,
you know, we're going our own direction. And then what
always happens, like in Hollywood, when a guy in a
grand breakup, they get they're not married anymore after a
long marriage, they both go to the gym and work
out a lot harder, and you know, they want to
look as incredible as they can in their dress. And
he's like, man, look at you know, look at whatever.

(34:40):
You know, look at her and look at him trying
to up. Yeah, somebody's trying to win the breakup here,
And to me, Brady had one to break up. I
know people are upset with him because he's working out
down in Florida. Uh, and he's uh not you know,
openying the NFLPA rules about hey, team workouts and it
should be half and all those things. But look at

(35:01):
his talent, you know, uh, when you look at Rob gron,
Cows King, O. J. Howard and Chris Godwin and Mike Evans,
and then also throw in Cameron Gray, another tight end
that from Harvard that a lot of people don't know.
And that's five big time playmakers at both tight end
and wide receiver. And that's the biggest challenge of why
I'm not necessarily rushing to put my money down on

(35:22):
Cam Newton right now, because I do believe that if
Cam can come back healthy, that he could make a
tremendous difference for the New England Patriots. The biggest challenge though,
is this was an offense that did not make very
many plays last year even with Tom Brady. Julian Edelman
is aging final you know, memory of Julian Edelman last

(35:43):
season was dropping a big, big pass that should have
been an easy first down late in that game. Uh
for the New England Patriots against Tennessee Titans. You had
aging weapons elsewhere. Uh. The Sony Michelle experiment didn't seem
like it was really working. Harry was kind of killing.
Harry just didn't show up. They made the trade, which

(36:04):
seemed like it was going to be a good one
with the Atlanta Falcons to bring in the playmaker there
whose name is immediately escaping me because I'm not on
top of every single person on the roster. But they
gave up a second round pick, uh for for him,
Mohammed Sanu. And that's Sanu pick. I mean, like, I
don't know, I love you guys last year, but Mohammed

(36:26):
Sanu was a very reliable wide receiver for Matt Ryan
for a long time now. Granted he got to play
alongside of Julio Jones and maybe there's a lot of people,
uh benefit really reliable alongside of Julio Jones, but he
got to New England and he didn't pan out, and
they paid a pretty substantial price for him. And by
the way, we should also mention that the Patriots got
their penalty for the latest camera related incident for the

(36:49):
sideline filming, and they're giving up a third round pick,
uh next season. I believe it's pick and we picked
this New England Patriot off fense and this is not
an offense that looks explosive to me. And that's what
would may be a little bit nervous and uh and
and maybe not buy into the idea that the Patriots

(37:11):
should be favored necessarily to win the a f C East.
But I think this is all about the respect in
past years for Belichick. I think it's all about the
respect for Cam Newton at his best and the belief
that nobody has been better at getting the best out
of players in his career in the NFL than Bill Belichick.
I think that's what I said. I also think that
one thing I was wondering about throughout this entire process

(37:33):
was how badly Cam Newton wanted to continue to play football.
I thought we might be looking at Andrew luck situation
here with somebody that had lost a smile, that had
lost some of his passion for the game because it
had just been physically taken from him, like it was
hard for him to walk. But if you look at
some of these videos you've seen in the last eight
to ten weeks or whatever with him working out on
the West Coast and everything, he clearly has something to prove.

(37:56):
This is a no. I mean, really, you can't lose
if you're Cam Newton here because as you're getting an
opportunity to play with a bell, it's awesome. This is
this is a good move by the New England Patriots.
I would pick them to win the division right now.
If you don't have a quarterback, you don't have much
And I even with the unknowns about Cam, I might
still take him over Josh Allen. Be sure to catch
live editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week

(38:18):
days at six am Eastern three am Pacific as usual
with gets up ended at 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

(38:40):
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 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 of large been not talked about in

(39:02):
any way. Now all of a sudden, everything is centering
around the New England Patriots in some way, shape or form,
whether it's Brady versus Belichick or now here's Belichick with
a former NFL m v P as a quarterback. Yeah.
I think this just tells us that the NFL storylines
are compelling and uh and and unique in a way

(39:23):
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 ever paired together
for effectively a generation, and now they've gone both in
their own directions. And if you were sort of assessing

(39:44):
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. 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 gonna do in the next two

(40:05):
or three years at the most, because look, 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 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

(40:27):
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 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

(40:47):
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 that they had.
It seemed like Belichick was comfortable with potentially rolling out
Jared said him as a guy, and that seemed like
the height of arrogance for Bill Belichick to say, I'm

(41:10):
going to replace the guy who is the greatest quarterback
maybe in the history of the sport with a quarterback
that was a fourth round draft pick, and nobody else
really seemed to watch now one Now, I know 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 or Edgecobe Prisette, he found

(41:31):
a good value in Matt Castle in the games that
he's had the 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
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

(41:52):
try Jared Stidham out 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 you that
dominance that he's had in the a FD 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

(42:14):
quarterback with potentially another stellar quarterback and he almost has
to pay nothing at all for him. This is vintage
Belichick and uh and I feel like in many ways
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

(42:37):
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
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

(42:58):
tried to do this three months ago, 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
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.

(43:19):
And you saw Jameis Wins didn't 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 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

(43:40):
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
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

(44:03):
fact that, you know, with Jamis Winston taking basically less
than a million dollars a year and Cam Newton taking
an incentive laden contract it doesn't pay him very much
money at all either, that these guys are desperate to
still try and 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

(44:26):
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
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,

(44:48):
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
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 just wanted
to go home, wanted to be anywhere else but on
the football field. So for him to fight as hard

(45:11):
as he has over this last stretch to land a
new job with a lot to prove, probably 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,

(45:32):
at least so far. Yeah. I think that's the biggest takeaway, um,
is that you know it would be easy for Cam
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.

(45:56):
When you finish your career, You're gonna win a national championship,
you're gonna win a Heisman Trophy, you're gonna win an
NFL m v P, and you are going to play
in a Super Bowl. Yes, I know Cam Newton 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

(46:20):
a Super 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

(46:41):
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.

(47:02):
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

(47:25):
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 estate.

(47:46):
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 rootable. I know he's going
to a team that usually you want to hate, but

(48:08):
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

(48:28):
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

(48:51):
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 Titan But if
you took my personal team out of it, to me
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But to me, the team that
I was like almost the most least interested in watching

(49:11):
if Jared's Didham 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

(49:31):
we would 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 prime time, 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 used to over the years. And

(49:54):
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 Buccaneers I think should
be number one, and almost everybody's list. I think you
could make an argument with Cam Newton coming back to

(50:16):
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. I'm gonna take uh like

(50:36):
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 could 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 because Ben Roethlisberger's coming

(50:59):
back that defensive 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 and everything else. In the fact, Patriots,

(51:22):
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 Garoppolo orts coming back, I could
look at Kyler Murray and I could say, hey, what
about him? You just named like six teams in a row,

(51:42):
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 on to Miami and say,
what's Fitzpatrick versus two? Are gonna be like, uh, you

(52:04):
still haven't named one that I wrote down, and that's
Green Bay with this soul Aaron Rodgers situation with Jordan
loves 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 going to be played. But when you think
about all of the drama, and I didn't even go
down to Dallas, got in his contract situation, and Ezekiel

(52:29):
Elliott trying to bounce back after getting his big deal
for 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 not sure. We
didn't even talked about the defending champions and they're similating

(52:51):
to watch. Yeah, I'm 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 could be, right,
I mean, uh, you're talking about the Houston Texans. What

(53:11):
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, I
would probably go this way if if I'm working through

(53:32):
my five right now, I think I would go Bucks one.
I think in the two spots, 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 and Belichick

(53:52):
that combo. I think in the fourth spot, I would
go 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, but guess what,

(54:14):
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 that are likely

(54:36):
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 with all the

(54:57):
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 I mean, that's

(55:18):
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 than what we're

(55:41):
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 outkicked the coverage with
Clay Travis. This is I'll kick the coverage Jason Martin

(56:07):
along with Clay Travis, who's 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 basement price

(56:28):
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 their stocks.

(56:52):
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 happened. 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 you out

(57:13):
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 that

(57:37):
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 surround

(58:00):
unding 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
the first round pick. Um. We already know Mohammed Sanu
has at times been really a pretty outstanding number two,

(58:23):
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

(58:47):
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 bearish Cam Newton has

(59:10):
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

(59:33):
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,

(59:53):
to kill Harry is a rare Patriots miss on the
offensive side of the ball at wide receiver Mohmedson. New
was covered up for his deficiencies. The Falcons knew that
he didn't have the Jets anymore, that he didn't have
the ability. They got rid of him. Uh, they would
have kept him with Matt Ryan if they thought he
had a lot left. We know that Julian Edelman has

(01:00:13):
been injured. He's aging. I think he's thirty four and
thirty five years old. He had a lot of drops
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

(01:00:35):
ten uh, inside the red zone. He was not decisive
enough in his reads. He relies too much on his legs.
And he's now thirty one and he can't take kids 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
he relied on with Ed greg Olsen. Uh for a

(01:00:55):
long time with Carolina at running back, he wasn't able
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.

(01:01:19):
That's pretty good cases, right that I just laid out
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 wave and that suddenly Cam Newton

(01:01:41):
is gonna come back to m v P form Cam Newton.
I think that the likelihood here is that right now,
the Patriots are a little bit over value in the
in the odds markets, foxbet 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 FC one to win the

(01:02:01):
Super Bowl. I think that's optimistic. I think this is
an eight mate caliber Patriots team. Eight and eight caliber
teams can go six and ten, or they can go
tenant six, And I think they'll finish right around five
and Cam 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

(01:02:24):
v P caliber talent. That's the way that I would
assess it. How about you. I 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 pass attempts, sixty two

(01:02:45):
of those were deemed bad throws. From an analytics standpoint,
that turns out to be about 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 bad throw last year, but
he barely played, so those numbers are kind of inflated.
So I was looking more at the year before. But

(01:03:05):
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 it relates to the people that are
can 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

(01:03:28):
little bit easier where he was playing in the NFC South.
He was dealing with some pretty talented guys, especially with
Matt Ryan and 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.

(01:03:51):
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 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 win eight games and still somehow
win the division? Do you think that's even possible? Like,

(01:04:13):
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 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

(01:04:33):
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 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

(01:04:55):
correcting that one in five with the only win being
over the Tennessee Titans in one of the least games
of the year. I think that final was four teen seven,
and the Titans missed like four or five field goals
in that game, and we saw some of the issues
that Josh Allen still has in the second half of
that game against the Houston Texans, when let's be honest,
the Bills basically gave that game away. And so, um,

(01:05:19):
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. 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

(01:05:39):
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 very much on
their defense, and they won 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 motto, but I I just I

(01:06:02):
don't know necessarily that i'd buy into Adam Gates or
what they're building in New York. I like 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

(01:06:23):
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 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 it in front of Fox
bet year. I was looking at him up this morning

(01:06:44):
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. 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 tennant six seems like it'd 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

(01:07:06):
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 may as 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

(01:07:28):
game you mentioned, Dolphins, Redskins, Dolphins again, Broncos, Cowboys, Steelers,
and that's it. That's not the not the most look.
You can only play who's on your shie cowboy? Yeah,
the cowboy wins. So they did beat another Uh, well
they didn't make the playoffs. Sorry, Cowboy makes you win
a mate and choked it away. But I do think

(01:07:50):
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 and the
and that not a murderers row. You just ran a strough. No,
it was not. And good for them for taking advantage
of that schedule. And that's the first thing you do
when you become a good team is beat up some
of the bad teams. That's what the Bills were able
to do to get to the playoffs last year. This

(01:08:12):
is outkicked the coverage with Clay Travis and I'm Jason Martin.

(01:08:35):
I'll be in for the rest of the week with
Jeff Schwartz used to be a large part of this
show and sometimes still am. I'm on Twitter at j
Mark Radio. Clay Travis is at Clay Travis. He's also
in Florida for this week, but he is with us
as if you just tuned in. He is on his
phone working even on vacation because that's just what he
does is that? Is that the way you wanted me
to say at Clay? Is that how you wanted me

(01:08:56):
to get that out there? Uh look, I mean I
think it explains if he will been complained. Oh why
has the self? But you know there's always audio guy
out there as you well remember like the audio in
my ears. This is when I put on my special headphones.
There's a popping in the background. Yeah. Look, I'm Davin Florida.
But the Cam Newton news broke. I was thinking about
taking off the entire week. Uh. Instead, I was like,

(01:09:18):
you know what, there's a lot to talk about with
Cam Newton. And by the way, there's also a OutKick
Special for all of you out there complaining because I'm
finally taking a couple of days off. We're doing we
usually have Jason Whitlock on right now on Monday. So
we went ahead and knocked out and outkicked special. Because
I know a lot of people, especially this time of year,

(01:09:38):
if you're going away, you're almost all going away in
your cars. You're driving places, maybe two peaches, maybe a
uh to to visit with family, whatever. Over July four.
To hope everybody's being happy and healthy and uh and
and making good decisions for your families and uh, so
we'll have an extra show for you. So j Mark's
got the rest of the week. Um, we're sitting here

(01:10:00):
hanging out talking about Cam Newton. But but then you'll
have six shows this week instead of five, So we
got eighteen hours for you instead of fifteen. So uh,
there's lots of good stuff out there. And thanks again
to everybody out there for making this what I think
is going to be. Although we haven't officially finished June yet,
the biggest invest month in the history of the out

(01:10:22):
Kick podcast. Go downloads. Indeed, just start out Kicked the
coverage and join the movement. You probably already are subscribed,
but if not, we'll give you a mulligaan. But just
get it right. Get it right this time. So I'm
gonna ask you about I'm gonna ask you to play
nostre damas a little bit. Please, Lord, don't put on
your lawyer hat, but you can put on your future
hat right now if you would like, and answer me

(01:10:43):
this question. Is Cam Newton the starting quarterback for the
New England Patriots in the fall of one I don't
think he is. It's a fantastic question. And I think
what Cam Newton is trying to do is he is
adding on himself and either he will vastly exceed what

(01:11:05):
the New England Patriots want to spend on a quarterback,
or he will come out and he will perform in
a way that is not good enough to justify a
starting quarterback salary. So I think it's almost certain that
either direction, Cam Newton is not back in New England. Now.
Could I be wrong about that, yes, But I think

(01:11:27):
if you look at Belichick, he has proven over time
that he is the ultimate salary cap arbitrage guy, and
right now he's getting a steal on Cam Newton. The
only way I can see Cam coming back is let's
say they come out of the gates, the Patriots to
super hot, and Cam is really good in the first

(01:11:48):
five or six weeks of the season. Then I could
see Belichick and the Patriots going to Cam and being like, hey,
are you interested in signing an extension now? Because they
could get him, maybe at a reduced rate. But otherwise,
I think either Cam comes out he plays gangbuster and
he prices himself out of the Patriot job, or or

(01:12:11):
he comes out and he's not very good, and the
Patriots say, you know what, We're not going to bring
him back. It's time to go the youth movement. Uh So,
I think the chances of Cam Newton being in New
England for more than a year are slim, I think,
but at least based on what we've heard so far,
if there was a strong chance he was going to
be there multiple years, the Patriots would have gotten some

(01:12:33):
kind of option in year two and tried to sign
him to a multi year contract as opposed to a
one year deal. Assess the validity of this comparison. I
was thinking about this as you were talking there. This
feels kind of like a prove it and move it
either way for Cam Newton. That's the way you said,
and I kind of agree with you. But think about
DeMarcus Cousins and DeMarcus Cousins playing for not a ton

(01:12:57):
of money and joining a team that was load. This
team is not loaded, but on the sidelines. Obviously it
is with Bill Belichick, but it was all about just
trying to overcome what had come before. And Cam Newton
is better than DeMarcus Cousins, but both of them were
dealing with a ton of injuries. And there were that
was more of the question mark than anything else, because
the physical tools were certainly there, the emotions and things

(01:13:19):
like that. At times both of them could be difficult
because they didn't do very well when they weren't winning.
They weren't as much fun to be around during that time.
But that's that's kind of what you're saying here. It's
just kind of like Cam Newton is either auditioning for
the future or he's proving that his time has passed. Yeah.
I I think that's exactly right. And in the meantime,

(01:13:41):
he gets to play for the best the best coach
in the history of the NFL. And look, I think
there's a possible argument that Cam could come out, he
could play Game Busters and he could think, you know what,
I've made enough money. I'm going to take less to
stay in New England because I think that's the best
place for me to win a Super Bowl. I think
that's unlikely that he'll go way beneath what he thinks

(01:14:03):
his market value is for multiple years. I think this
is a show me move. I think it's the best
possible situation for him. Uh And frankly, it may be
a situation of Cam humbling himself. It may well be
that we're talking about Cam coming out and taking a
lot less than maybe he was worth. It may also
be that there weren't very many takers in the Cam

(01:14:24):
Newton bidding process, and so it's not that he was
turning down more substantial dollar figure offers elsewhere. Is that
there weren't a lot of offers. And I think that's
probably a lot of truth to it, because I think
if there had been a lot of demand for Cam Newton,
I think the Carolina Panthers would have traded him instead
of releasing him right because he was still under contract.

(01:14:46):
And remember, if I'm not mistaken, he's still getting a
decent amount of that those dollars, I think from the
Carolina Panthers, even though he may be playing with the
New England Patriots this year. Mike Reece wrote it this way,
and we will continue to break this down as we
move on to the third hour of the program, Clay
and I will Mike Reas wrote it this way for ESPN.
He's covered the Patriots for a long time. He says

(01:15:07):
Newton could have considered waiting for an injury somewhere in
the NFL with more of a clear path to start,
but his decision to come to New England on a
prove it type of deal reflects a desire to compete,
which has to be appealing to coach Bill Belichick, who
often says nothing is given and players ultimately earned their
roles through their performance. Belichick has always had respect for

(01:15:28):
Newton as a competitor. Well, first off, that speaks very
good to Cam Newton, and it's positive to be able
to say something like that. But Belichick has watched him
from before and has always said kind things about Cam Newton,
and now he gets to work with him as a
member of the Patriots. Fox Sports Radio has the best
sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our

(01:15:49):
shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the
I Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live.
Finish it up here on a Monday. I'll Kicked the

(01:16:10):
Coverage and thrilled to have you with us. We appreciate it.
Wherever you happen to be, make sure you subscribe to
the podcast. It's I'll Kick the Coverage with Clay Travis.
It's the one that's near the top of the rankings consistently.
You'll see the logo you'll see the big oul kick.
They're staring you in the face. That's the one that
you subscribe to. Clay, Travis is off this week, but
he is with me right now via his phone, his
cell phone down in Florida because of this Cam Newton news,

(01:16:33):
and we talked about it off and on throughout the program. Clay,
the big thing that I look at here is the Bills.
It seemed like they might have had the inside track
even if you didn't believe in Josh Allen. They were
loaded so many other places. What does Cam Newton do
when you look at that division? Does do the Patriots
now win the a f C East? Yeah, it's a

(01:16:54):
great question. Fox bet has got him favored, But I
don't buy into the Patriots as should be the favorite
if I were betting right now, which I will be um.
I I kind of feel like the Dolphins are the
team that are sleeping here that could surprise people, and
to people are gonna think that's crazy. Let me explain
why I like the value on the Dolphins at nine

(01:17:17):
or ten to one, depending on where you're looking. First,
remember the Dolphins finished five and four and Brian Fitzpatrick
and the Miami Dolphins went on the road and one
in Foxborough in cold weather, knocked the Patriots out of
the division, uh sorry, out of the bye week and
into the wild card round, and they really played pretty

(01:17:40):
outstandingly well down the stress at times. Now, I think
at one point or another during the season, two will
be back healthy. He will be the starter. But I
really like what Brian Flores is building. I like the
young talent on the Miami Dolphins. I like the value
on them. I also I think there's decent value on
the Jet. Look when Sam Donald has been healthy, this

(01:18:02):
is a different offense. I feel like the Levian Bell
in year two is going to be much improved in
this offense. Remember the way the season started with before
you was seeing ghosts and before yet Mono. Sam Donald
came out and the Jets looked like they were going
to handle the Bills pretty easily in the first week
of the season, and then they fell apart. They had

(01:18:24):
injury was all season. We know what happened to them
at quarterback. I'm not really a believer in the Bills
and Josh Allen. I know that some people out there
are huge Josh Allen fans. I just don't see it.
I'm curious how Stefon Diggs is gonna work with them.
We know that he's been at times a locker room cancer.
For a young quarterback, that seems like a challenge situation.

(01:18:44):
I love that Bill's defense, uh and I really like
the Patriot defense. But ultimately I don't think and we
talked a lot about this an hour too, I don't
like this Patriot offensive roster. I just feel like they
have a lot of issues. I think as much tension
as there was between Brady and Belichick, the real reason
why Brady left New England was because he looked around

(01:19:06):
and said, this is not a talented cadre on the
offensive side of the ball that can win me a
Super Bowl. And I believe Cam Newton is going to
have those same challenges. Now Cam's not forty three. He's
got a bunch of years left for Cam. If he
can come out and he can win nine or ten games,
people are gonna be ecstatic. He'll make himself tons of money.

(01:19:27):
I love the move to gamble on yourself to prove
that you still have that competitive fire. I really like
the idea of Cam Newton basically investing in himself and
saying it's not about the money that I'm making this year.
It's very Jamis Winston like, except Cam has obviously had
a much higher ceiling so far in his career than
Jamis Winston has. I want to be cautious about how

(01:19:50):
I say this, but one thing I look at when
it comes to Cam is Cam isn't somebody that's had
a ton of weapons that he's played with that receiver either,
like throughout his career. This is is somebody that's a
one from the penthouse and now all of a sudden
has nobody to throw too. This is somebody that's used
to having to do a lot on his own. Now
this is to throw out obviously McCaffrey. But Olsen wasn't
healthy a lot. They didn't have a lot of like

(01:20:12):
the they weren't. It wasn't a team with an elite
wide receiver. I think that's the best. I think if
you were looking at the Patriot, I mean at the
Panther roster in the Cam Newton era, you'd probably say
Steve Smith was the best wide receiver he ever had, right,
and that was not for a long time in his career.
But you're right, I mean, this is a guy leaving

(01:20:32):
aside Christian McCaffrey had to tell end of his career,
greg Olsen is probably the most consistent receiver that he
has had for for much of his career. Um and Uh,
and I think you're right. I mean, I think that
much of what Cam had to do, he had to
carry the team on his shoulders very much for an
offensive perspective. Now he's used to that. I just don't

(01:20:52):
know the question for Cam. And we talked about this
a lot an hour too. It canny transition to a
quarterback who can consistently make it, Nate Brow, because for
a long time he was athletic enough to be able
to extend plays and also make first down with his feet.
Remember the way the last game he played ended. He
was trying to score in the goal line situation against

(01:21:15):
the Carolina Panthers. Sorry that Carolina Panthers are playing against
the Tampay Buccaneers. He couldn't do it. Remember they stopped
after he trying to score, and they didn't sneak Camp
because maybe his foot was injured. Whatever the situation was there,
they were on the doorstep and we haven't seen Camp
play since well, Clay, Uh, amazing that you were able
to still find time. And I know you, so I

(01:21:35):
wasn't surprised that I had a message from you saying, hey,
I do want to talk about this Cam Newton thing
even though I'm down here but now barring something else
and who knows in We hope you enjoyed the remainder
of your vacation week. Yeah, and I apologized everybody for
having to rely on my cell phone, but happened. You
know how much I love this stuff. I wanted to
come on and talk about it with you. I hope

(01:21:57):
everybody has a great rest of their week. We've gotta
actacular additional episode with Jason Whitlock that we're going to
put up as a July fourth special. You know a
lot of people are going to be in their cars traveling. Uh,
And I hope people enjoy that as well. Yeah, and
they absolutely should. All Right, Clay, enjoy your vacation. We'll
talk to you next week. Appreciate a man that is
Clay Travis. This has men. I'll kick the coverage. Jeff

(01:22:19):
Schwartz and I. We will have the ship tomorrow and
we will react more to the Cam Newton story. Jeff
and Charlotte. He'll have things to say. We'll talk to
you tomorrow Here on Fox Sports Radio. Fox Sports Radio
has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch
all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com
and within the I Heart Radio app search f s

(01:22:39):
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