Bedard: Cam Newton needs to show more progress to hold off Mac Jones for Patriots QB

FOXBOROUGH — It wasn't a big sample size, certainly compared to his rookie teammate, but maybe that was part of the point.

Cam Newton has been improved. He's been quicker. More accurate. Seems to be making progress learning some of the tricks of the trade that makes the Patriots' offense one of the best in the league for the right quarterback.

That's what he showed in practice ... for the most part.

So when it came time to seeing Newton on Thursday night against Washington, we expected to see some improvement. This is Year 2 Cam. This is, Worked Hard In The Offseason With A Throwing Coach Cam. This is Been In The Offense Cam. No Covid Cam.

You get the idea.

But then came Newton's first two dropbacks of the game and they were ... exactly at the same as last year (BSJ members get video analysis of both Newton and Jones below).

The first dropback was the kind of, 'Hey, let's start this drive with a simple play to get us a few yards and feeling good about ourselves," and it featured a play — boot action to the tight end in the flat — that should be money in the bank for an athletic quarterback like Newton. 

Instead, Newton doesn't even give Jonnu Smith a chance to catch the ball and make a play after the catch — exactly why the Patriots gave him $12.5 million annually — against a linebacker. Smith doesn't even attempt to catch the ball as it bounces off the turf.

We saw that plenty last year.

On third down, Newton is not only sacked in 2.41 seconds before Chase Young abused Isaiah Wynn, but Newton nearly fumbles because of his lack of pocket awareness.

I don't have an issue with the sack. It's really on Wynn. But Newton needs to be better than this. He was supposed to be better than this.

Washington has six players around the line of scrimmage. They appear to be in press man. That should tell everyone that some sort of pressure is coming.

Then, with 8 seconds left on the playclock, one of the safeties comes down into the tackle box, giving Washington seven players there.

Ok, now something is definitely on, unless it's a great bluff.

Does Year 2 Newton make a quick check at the line to give the Patriots a better option at having a successful play, which Tom Brady would have done, and Mac Jones will do soon if he can't already? No.

Does Newton think about his possible counters should Washington go with an all-out blitz here? Doesn't appear so.

The shotgun snap goes to Newton and he looks unhurried, like it's a 7-on-7 drill, despite Washington sending six rushers. He's ready to go through his reads. It doesn't take long to see that the Patriots are not going to have someone open. Does Newton pay careful mind to Young? Does Newton quickly tuck the ball and run when no one is open and try to run over a linebacker or safety? None of that.

Newton drops back, takes his time, and nearly is strip-sacked.

Looked very similar to this play, complete with bad Wynn blocking against a good young rusher (Bradley Chubb):

Newton eventually led a scoring drive on the next possession thanks to a bunch of checkdowns and screens, but the bottom line is Newton needs to be better than those two plays. He should be better than those two repeats of 2020.

He needs to be, because Newton has real competition this year. A year ago, there was no one but Cam as a real option.

After that drive, then came Newton's replacement, Mac Jones, who is no Jarrett Stidham or Brian Hoyer. This is the 15th overall pick in the draft and won a national championship Mac Jones. More importantly, this is a player Bill Belichick wanted to see more of ... so he pulled Cam a drive early and inserted Jones specifically so he could get a series with the starters. This is the same Jones who was asked, after 12 training camp practices (and two were useless jogthroughs in the stadium), to run the two-minute drill out of halftime with a bunch of backups.  And put points on the board doing it.

I'm not going to stand here and tell you Jones lit the world on fire. He did not. 13 of 19 for 87 yards and a sack was good enough for a Kyle Orton-ish passer rating of 78.2.

But with two drops by Kristian Wilkerson (one for a possible touchdown) and an incompletion to Jakobi Meyers actually being a completion, Jones really should have finished 16 of 19 for 147 yards and a touchdown. That would have been a passer rating of 114.3 and would have blown the roof off Gillette Stadium.

Again, just like with Newton, it's not about the stats with Jones. It's about how it's supposed to look. And to look like that after 12 practices ... it looked pretty damn good. The ball comes out (2.3 seconds snap to throw for Jones; 2.54 for Newton) when it's supposed to. Jones runs playfakes that actually suck in linebackers to create throwing lanes. Jones hits staples like bang-action in rhythm to get drives going.

And you can feel he's just days from changing a play wholly at the line and getting the Patriots a big play.

Newton ... is still not connecting on simple plays, nor is he quickening his pace in the face of obvious pressure. For the first preseason game, he looked stuck in 2020.

But it's 2021 and Jones is charging hard for his job. Belichick obviously is giving Jones a legitimate chance to compete for the job given his choices the past few weeks.

If Jones continues to ascend in the next 10 days in joint practices and games with the Eagles and Giants, and Newton doesn't show he's all that much better than Cam 1.0, Jones is going to be given a chance to do much more than compete.

Make no mistake, the competition is on.