Why Cam Newton's arm isn't done and how to fix next year

[Snake]

6 hours ago, coralreefer_1 said:

This for me is the best and brightest spot of this thread.  My god let that man be decent and retire. If R. Kalil is any kind of Panther, he will know how fugged this team is with his brothers contract..and more or less force his little bro to retire!!!!!

Don't discount someones greed. My personal opinion was Ryan knew his brother would never fully heal. It was a JR move that will probably cost this team a bunch. Injury settlement might be the best case.

[Snake]

4 hours ago, electro's horse said:

This is inaccurate. 

Believe that if you want. Coming from a guy who carries a name that makes fun of a dude that shot himself and his horse after a battle with depression I don't think it means much.

[Snake]

6 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I will be SHOCKED if Matt Kalil retires. He'd be leaving a lot of money on the table. I fully expect him to force us to cut him so that he can get his money.

I feel that's probably where it ends up. Then again going through TC hurt isn't much fun.

[LinvilleGorge]

4 minutes ago, Snake said:

I feel that's probably where it ends up. Then again going through TC hurt isn't much fun.

He'll be cut long before TC. He'll still have $14.7M in unearned bonus money after this season. That's 14.7M reasons not to retire.

[Snake]

7 hours ago, Khyber53 said:

Hindsight is 20/20. Going back to pre-season, Cam hasn't been making any long throws and our coaching staff has known that he was going to be limited. They never said anything about it because, well, why would you tell the rest of the league "Our star QB can't accurately throw the ball more than 15 yards and won't be a threat to run on every down this year?"  Especially when we start having injury after injury on our offensive line. 

Instead, some very smart coaching went into creating enough smoke and mirrors for us to grind out six wins. The threat of the long ball from Cam AND his ability to run actually take a bit of pressure off of the O-line. In the meantime, Norv dials up an inordinate amount of misdirection plays and we talk about Cam's new focus on taking the check down and short passing game. CMC, Moore and Samuel begin to shine, partly because of their great skill sets and partly because that's all we can rely on in the passing game for short, underneath passes.

In the meantime, everyone is screaming about how our WRs suck and that neither Funchess nor Smith are worth a darn and can't get any separation. They aren't capable of stretching the field people shouted. Now, in hindsight, it seems that much of the route running they did was just decoy work. It didn't stretch the field much, but it kept defenses honest with their safeties, giving CMC some room to work. 

As the season went on, and Cam took more hits and ran less, I think all but the worst teams figured out that he was just a shadow of himself. The Cam that could literally flip a game with a single run or long bomb just wasn't there. His shoulder couldn't answer the bell. And I am sure if we watched the tape closely enough, we can probably catch a hand signal or something that would tell the OC when he could or couldn't execute a play and that they would have to switch to an alternate one. Maybe a head bob, or something like turning to the endzone while hearing the play would let them know. That might explain some of the slow getting to the line. 

I think the first team to really figure it out was Pittsburgh. Their defense attacked our line and disregarded the long range passing game. They hit him and slammed him, they basically forced our offense off the field time and time again. Couple that with our horrible defensive play calling and it was a rout. They basically pulled back the curtain and even teams like Detroit and Cleveland could have their way with us. 

None of us knew this going into the season because we might have been looking at a 2-14 season had everyone known. Coaching did a lot for us (and Rivera's defensive play calling certainly has been an improvement over Washington's_). The emergence of CMC has done a lot and our O-line was strangely enough, better than last season's. And Cam has been brave and fought hard for every victory. 

The wear and tear have just been too much, both on Cam and on the rest of the team. I don't think Olsen was ever fully healed, either and that may have been a bigger issue than any of us knew. How many games was the most reliable receiver out there only capable of half of what he used to provide?

And now we sit, listening to Coach Rivera say that Cam is still penciled in as the starter this coming week. He's doing it because it is the smart thing to do. Atlanta has to prepare to face Cam, whether that ends up being the case or not. It's the only card Riverboat Ron still has stashed in his vest. He's been dealt bad hands all season and he's played as smart as he could with the cards he has, now, it's just an effort to break even before the game is called.

I hope Cam will regain some of his ability in the off season. The guy is just a phenomenal player and talent. It would just hurt to see a young man sidelined this early in his career and to not have those incredible runs, that winning spirit and that laser cannon arm not winning games for us.

But that's next season, something to hope for. This season's all but done and deserving of a bit of insight and understanding.

From what I know Cam could throw the deep ball the first half of the year. I can't really speak in detail but let's just say anyone with two eyes knows Cam needs a good line and to stop leading with his shoulder on runs. Well one of those was corrected. The other one cause what we saw after the Steelers game.

[Snake]

2 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

He'll be cut long before TC. He'll still have $14.7M in unearned bonus money after this season. That's 14.7M reasons not to retire.

Haven't looked but I'm not sure if its not better to keep him next year. Either way you are definitely correct. He has a low chance of retirement. I still say from what I've heard though it's higher than you would think. 

[Jangler]

duct tape.

[Manther]

 

On 12/19/2018 at 7:46 AM, uncfan888 said:

Because he didn't take a helmet directly to the shoulder? But even in the first 8 games, we never threw it down field

Uhh, maybe few completions, but not attempts.  I clearly remember the Cinci game started with a bomb to Smith who subsequently dropped it.  It was right through his fffing hands.

[uncfan888]

1 hour ago, Manther said:

 

Uhh, maybe few completions, but not attempts.  I clearly remember the Cinci game started with a bomb to Smith who subsequently dropped it.  It was right through his fffing hands.

OK. Let me change that to we "barely" threw down field

[Manther]

17 hours ago, uncfan888 said:

OK. Let me change that to we "barely" threw down field

Yes.  But how much of that is Cam just did not have time.  Even if Cam's arm could reach the length of the field, he needs 4-5 secs.  They were hitting him at 1.5

 

[RumHam]

On 12/19/2018 at 8:03 AM, OceanPanther said:

I know nothing about his shoulder or scar tissue ,,   but he has not thrown a long pass all season..  Even in the Ravens game they brought in T Heinieki to throw the hail mary at the end of the half..   Heinieki didn't and threw to Olsen setting up a FG .. but Cam hasn't been Cam all year,,  it's been short passes all year,  and the weeks have gone by , they've been shorter passes..

It's more than this season, it goes back to last season. We didn't make long throws last year too, but they were attempted and were off every single time. He has no deep ball accuracy and has to shot put that poo up there. The excuse is we didn't have downfield runners. Deep passes weren't close. 

Here's the overall issue and this is on Rivera. He's done a terrible job in terms of handling injuries. It started with Ryan Kalil last year. Week to week when clearly something major was going on. It stems from not pulling Cam when questionable hits happened that spurred consussion symptoms. Now, literally no one had any idea that Shaq had any injury troubles. All of a sudden we put him on IR for it? Rivera is doing some shady poo behind the scenes, and this should be reason enough to show him the door. 

[RelaxImaPro]

On 12/19/2018 at 7:44 AM, TheSaint said:

Why was it not an issue the first 8 games of the year?

thats why I dont buy the scar tissue argument.

It was those games as well, just not as bad.  He hasn’t hardly been able to push the ball downfield or put his trademark zip on his throws all year.  It’s just progressively gotten worse as the season has went on.