Stop Passing The Buck.

Patriots haters are still saying Cam Newton had no one to throw to in 2020. I've covered this before and the myth has been laid to rest but the Cam Newton bandwagon won't let it die. They need a scapegoat and so why not blame the rest of the offense.

To start, yes we can single out individuals but as a whole, Newton's supporting cast, his weapons only dropped five spots in rankings from 2019 to 2020. They went from 17th to 22nd. They were below average ranking, not one of the bottom 8 garbage teams. And the pass catchers as a whole were ranked 3rd in separation. Now that we cleared that up, let's continue. 

Cam Newton threw a total of 368 passes. Newton was ranked 20th in completion percentage throwing from a clean pocket with a 74.3%. That means Newton failed to completely 94.5 passes while under no pressure. Keep that number in mind.

Cam Newton was ranked 35th in catchable pass rate, with only 73.9% being catchable. That equates to 96 uncatchable passes. Before one says he had to throw the ball away, he had the 4th best competition percentage in the league while under pressure. Newton also threw 20 interceprable passes, and had a total of 10 interceptions on the season.

Now there's a difference of 1.5 mays-well say 2, between number of uncatchable passes and number of incompletions while he had time. Not saying every uncatchable pass came while he had time but that's quite a coincidence that those numbers line up. On top of that he had 20 throws that were interceptable. So what does all this mean?

What it means is either Cam Newton had poor ball placement or he made bad decisions when throwing the football. Any honest fan or spectator that watched last season knows it was both. Newton finished with a supporting cast that was ranked below average at the end of the season but how can a pass catcher be productive if one third of their quarterback's passes are uncatchable, and he's throwing to the wrong guy? 

Newton is primarily to blame for why his supporting cast dropped five spots in the rankings. I'm not going to get into the other things being said in defense of why Newton had a bad 2020 but while the guys he was throwing to were below average, they're not why he struggled in 2020. Newton or his fans can not shift the blame here.

*Player profiler was used to help with the analytic rankings. Check them out.*