In a move that will go over like a lead balloon over much of New England, the Patriots are bringing back Cam Newton on a one-year deal.
ESPN's Adam Schefter reports the compensation is "close" to $14 million. That has to be with incentives. Tom Pelissero of NFL.com reports Newton's deal "gives him a chance to make a little bit more than he did in 2020" (around $6 million with incentives).
That's a very wide net there on compensation, and the truth will tell us more about what the Patriots really have planned at quarterback.
Oh, and Mike Reiss is reporting special teams player Justin Bethel resigned on a three-year, $6-million deal.
So that means the first three moves of this offseason were to trade for an offensive tackle when the Patriots don't have a ready opening there, a quarterback most people thought should have been benched last year, and a special teams ace. I assume Nick Folk's contract is being completed to be released later...
Quite the start to the new league year for the Patriots.
Back to Newton ... why and what does it mean?
BSJ ANALYSIS
Well, we told you this was coming. Called it a fait accompli around One Patriot Place, and it has happened:
I hate to say this, but I now think the Patriots are talking themselves into bringing back Cam Newton — or at least that Bill Belichick will — but not as the starter. As part of a room. They really think his surrounding cast was a big problem.
Yeah, this one’s tough. The more I talked to people around the team, hearing these people talk about Cam Newton and that they just don’t dismiss the talk and in fact go out of their way to explain it, it’s just very odd. I think they have some idea that Bill loves Cam which we’ve talked about going back into the middle of the beginning of the season. The way they talk, the way they don’t dismiss him, it’s almost like they think this is almost fait accompli where Bill is gonna bring him back, and they’ve sort of talked themselves into it and now, now they’re justifying it.
The way things get explained away to me is, 'Well Bill realizes we didn’t give him anything last year and if we had this x y and z, then Cam would have been better. We could coach Cam to do X, Y and Z.' And the more I listened to this stuff and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this is gonna happen. Cam is going to be back here.’
I think people are gonna freak out, but nobody’s talking about him bringing him back as a starter. I think you’re looking at a scenario where it’s say a Gardner Minshew — which I think they are open to but it’s my favored QB, and it could be any veteran type (Andy Dalton, Ryan Fitzpatrick) – Cam Newton, and a draft pack. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be one of the top five that you hear about. I think the Patriots think there’s a lot of depth in this quarterback class (Jamie Newman, Kellen Mond, etc). And I think they’re excited about some of these “secondary” guys in this draft. So if you have Minshew, Newton and a draft pick as the “worst-case” scenario for this team, I think they think they’ll be okay with that group.
If they go get a Minshew because he’s the best available, then you pair him with a draft pick, I think that’s a plan. I don’t understand the need for Cam, I think it’s a charity case, it’s, ‘You did right by us, you’re talking nice about us, so we’re gonna bring you back in the fold.’ That’s the way I feel about it.