Merril hodge says cam newton a top 5 qb right now.

[Pantherball]

Your "You are a Cam fanatic and therefore I cannot have conversation with you" bit is just a cop out. Last time we had this conversation I overloaded you with stats and you couldn't rebut them so you have reverted to saying this to mask your own deficiency in being able to back up your own arguments. And I am a Cam fan, but only because he has been great, not some blind allegiance that keeps me from being objective.

But if you want some more stats that shatters your whole point then fine here you go:

Over 4 seasons (2003-2006) Jake Delhomme had 16 come from behind wins in the 4th quarter and Peyton Manning had 12. Over that same time frame Jake had the highest playoff QB rating in NFL history.

Would it be your argument that over that period of time Jake Delhomme was a better QB than Peyton Manning?? After all he proved he could finish games better and was more clutch and better in pressure situations because of his playoff QB rating??

That is just one example of why your argument is so silly.

I just look at this thing like this. Cam has on four different occasions put us in a great position to win or tie a game on the last drive. Unfortunately to this point three of those we didn't get it done for whatever reason. But it is just a matter of time.

I don't find it compelling in the least that just because we have finished a couple of yards short in three of those games that it is any kind of proof that Cam isn't a clutch performer or a choke artist. That is asinine. If it continues over the course of several years then maybe we have that conversation. But right now it is too early to make those types of claims.

And when you try to declare it as indisputable with only a small sample it makes me feel your argument is petty, simplistic, and inaccurate.

You can't have this discussion with guys who can't even acknowlege definitions of words, let alone football statistics. If you posted statistics earlier, I probably completely ignored your post because what you have proven to me is that you: are one of the KINGS of straw man arguments.

So if you can't even do that, and so far you can't even acknowledge the validity in the difference of a QB rating between garbage time and regular time, comeback winning and game winning drives why the hell would I want to have a statistical debate with you?

I don't respond to you, not because you "overloaded" me with facts, but because you throw out anything important that doesn't suit your bias and call people stupid or trolls.

And yes thank you, you just proved to me how important comeback drives are. Jake was AWESOME at that especially when he was at his peak. We got to a Superbowl on his ability to manage a game and methodically drive us down the field to win close games late in the 4th quarter. Which is why as a Panthers fan, I have a hard time taking dudes like you seriously who try to discount the importance of that. We built a name and an image for ourselves based on this fact. And yes he did it better than Peyton and every true Panther fan knows this. Peyton's choked in the damn playoffs so many times it's not even funny. Even Indy fans know how much Peyton's choked. That's why the one year he did make it to the playoffs, everyone remembers the referees. The NFL helped Peyton quite a bit to get to where Jake got his first year with this team.

[OARevolution]

When your QB is trying to drive down the field on a game winning drive and makes a bad decision and throws a pic into coverage that is totally on the QB. When your QB takes the team down the field and the kicker misses a filed goal that is not totally on the QB. I'm not saying that to hate on Mare or anything I'm just saying that Cam had only that one game ending pick against Atlanta, every other game he has, for the most part, gotten us down there or not had enough time.

I'm not saying Cam is perfect and no QB is unless your name is Aaron Rodgers right now but he is playing at a really high level and I don't know if its ok to call him elite or not. I mean he's only played 8 games but he definitely is playing like hes right on the cusp at this current time and I can only imagine what he will start to look like when he gets a little more settled into his young career.

[carpanfan96]

First of all I just want to say this is one of the most intelligent replies on this forum to my argument. And top 10 perhaps, if wasn't for his 4th quarter statistics, he would be there. Considering those, he's top 15-20 right now. Once again I agree with his yardage numbers. But if you're going to compare him to Dalton and point out some of those advanced passing statistics you have to be able to do it in tandem with the receivers and not lose sight of a very important fact:

Andy Dalton's #1 receiver is AJ Green, another rookie coming out of college. Cam Newton's #1 receiver is Steve Smith, currently the #1 receiver in the NFL, and an elite veteran who's been doing this for a long time.

Breakdown: rec-tar-yards-ypa-TD's-long-20+

A.J. Green's stats: 33 59 516 15.6 5 58 9

Steve Smith's stats: 46 73 918 20.0 4 77 19

AJ Green has caught 56% of his passes.

Steve Smith has caught 61% of his passes.

Now before you put that on Cam Newton realize Andy Dalton's got a better completion percentage than Cam Newton(62.4 vs 60.6). So that means Cam's targeting Steve more than Dalton and also missing Steve more often than Andy's missing AJ and yet Steve Smith catches at a higher efficiency.

What does this mean? Cam's got by far the better #1 receiver. Smith also had double the yards but less touchdowns even though he has far more receptions than Green. Smith is the real deal just like we already knew. He can make Jake Delhomme look good and he can make a rookie who likes to pass more than his accuracy dictates look damn good in the yards category.

And before I go into the rest, and the bolded part I can accept that his 4th quarter rating is 84.4 overall this year and that other QB's ratings drop as well. Can you acknowledge the validity and importance of his 4th quarter QB rating of 60.0 in comeback drives or game winning drives? Can you acknowledge that Cam Newton is 1 for 14 on offensive drives in the 4th quarter in tied or 1 score game situations?

His QB rating in the 4th quarter when down but with in 7 is 75, the reason for that isn't interceptions but completion percentage. The same could be said for Tom Brady though, who's QB rating when down but with in 7 in the 4th quarter is 78. Rodgers has only 6 attempts in those situations and Brees is playing damn well in those situations.

As for the WR's, you have to look at more then just the #1 wr. You have to look at TE's and the 2 and 3rd WR's. You also have to look at the competition that's been faced. Yes this is the NFL and no week is a gimme... well maybe except for the Colts. lol

Green has 33 for 516. Simpson has 23 catches for 367 yards, Caldwell has 21 for 173 yards and Gresham has 25 for 231.

If you compare those to Carolina

You have Smith with 46 918, Olsen with 30 for 359, Shockey with 23 for 290, Stewart with 23 for 220, then you have LA with 236.

Not only is Cam not just throwing the ball more to Smitty on a comparable rate compared to overall attempts, he is doing really well reading the field and making his progressions. The stats show that clearly. Cinci throws less then Carolina by a whole lot, so if you compare attempts overall to attempts to AJ, you'll see your stat skew way more in my favor then in yours.

Taking a deeper look at the stats show a clearer picture since the offenses are so different from each other. Cinci's offense is a short passing game for the most part, where as Carolina takes shots down the field.

Taking that into account, Dalton has a higher int % then Cam newton does by .1 percent with less risk on the throws.

Going even further into it, Dalton's 4th quarter rating is 55, 51.8 when down but with in 7 points. When down by 7 or less no matter where at in the game his QB rating is 70.8.

All that against inferior opposition. Point and simple, Dalton isn't the reason Cinci is winning. That much is clear from the stats.

PS. I'll help you out here. The only argument you can come up with that stands on it's on legs with out personal opinion coming into play is Newton's numbers in the RedZone when passing. They are pretty damn bad.

[Marguide]

Simple question Pantherball...since you harp on the "performance in the clutch" thing so much: what more could Cam have done on the final drive against Minnesota that he didn't do?

It is a simple question. Four paragraphs are not required. Just a short, simple, concise answer.

[carpanfan96]

Simple question Pantherball...since you harp on the "performance in the clutch" thing so much: what more could Cam have done on the final drive against Minnesota that he didn't do?

It is a simple question. Four paragraphs are not required. Just a short, simple, concise answer.

Me...Me...Me.... I'm not PBall, but I'll answer this one. Not a whole lot, there were a few drops. A catchable ball to Olsen, and a BS holding call away from the play that stalled that drive out and caused it to fall short.

Main thing on the end of that drive is that smitty should've ran a few more yards down field before sitting down in the coverage on that last catch.

[teeray]

And yes thank you, you just proved to me how important comeback drives are. Jake was AWESOME at that especially when he was at his peak. We got to a Superbowl on his ability to manage a game and methodically drive us down the field to win close games late in the 4th quarter. Which is why as a Panthers fan, I have a hard time taking dudes like you seriously who try to discount the importance of that. We built a name and an image for ourselves based on this fact. And yes he did it better than Peyton and every true Panther fan knows this. Peyton's choked in the damn playoffs so many times it's not even funny. Even Indy fans know how much Peyton's choked. That's why the one year he did make it to the playoffs, everyone remembers the referees. The NFL helped Peyton quite a bit to get to where Jake got his first year with this team.

So you do think Jake was better than Peyton Manning from 2003-2006!! A guy that during that time period won 2 MVP awards and a Super Bowl. :lol: Don't get me wrong I was and still am a big fan of Jake but...

Got it. Good point. That is why trying to compare QBs based on "crunch time" statistics and QB rating in pressure situations is foolish.

Not to mention that Cam and Dalton both are infants in their careers in regards to 4th quarter comebacks so we should revisit this in a couple of years.

BTW. Are you using situations like having to go 80 yards in 50 seconds as your measuring stick in terms of QB rating on final drives? Just wondering because when you are trying to take big chunks of yards like that you completion percentage and QB rating are going to go down but it doesn't necessarily mean you are performing below average.

[JawnyBlaze]

I keep seeing talk about garbage time, but the only game we've had that had any garbage time was the Washington game, and that's because we were the ones up by so much...

[Pantherball]

Since we are having intelligent discussion, may I ask for a link where you got your 4th QTR comeback-scenario only rating for Cam? I only ask because it seems like every game we are down, Cam engineers a solid drive down the field and puts us in a fantastic position to either tie or take the lead.

No problem but it's not that easy. I'm going to have to give you 3 and a calculator, because you're not going to find this on Cam anywhere yet, at least I didn't. The secret's not out yet. Sites typically only do this to compare elite QB's. I had to do it myself.

So what you do is first you go here: http://espn.go.com/nfl/playbyplay?gameId=310911022&period=4

1. Identify if thee is a point in the 4th quarter where we are down by less than 8 points or tied and the offense has the ball. If there is, that qualifies as a comeback or game winning drive. Count passing attempts, completions, yardage, TD's, Interceptions. Add them up for each qualifying drive.

2. You open notepad and begin jogging them down( You can also count sacks if you want sack adjusted statistics). Use your calculator to add up the numbers.

2. You find you a QB rating calculator: http://www.primecomputing.com. You punch them in. Repeat the process for every game we played this year.

Or you could just take my word for it. No?;) No problem...I already did all the work in presentable fashion(best I could anyway) last week, and I saved it...so you can just overlook the numbers yourself.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Arizona_______ C/ATT YDS AVG_ TD_ INT_RATING

First 3 quarters: 15/16 322 20.1 2TD 1INT 132.3

4th quarter: ____9/17 91 5.4 0TD 0INT 68.5

Garbage time: ___N/A

Adjusted 4th: ___N/A

Advanced:

4th:___________ 9/19 84 4.4 0TD 0INT 60.0

Green Bay_____ C/ATT YDS AVG_ TD_ INT_RATING

First 3 quarters: 17/30 243 8.1 1TD 3INT 54.0

4th quarter: ___11/16 189 11.8 0TD 0INT 108.6

Garbage time: ___4/6 77 12.8 0TD 0INT 109.7

Adjusted 4th: ___7/10 112 10.2 0TD 0INT 107.0

Advanced:

4th quarter: ___11/19 174 9.1 0TD 0INT 88.5

Adjusted 4th: ___7/13 97 7.5 0TD 0INT 78.0

Bears_________ C/ATT YDS AVG_ TD_ INT_RATING

First 3 quarters: 18/29 273 9.4 0TD 1INT 78.6

4th quarter: ____9/17 101 5.94 1TD 0INT 90.6

Garbage time: ___6/7 77 11.0 1TD 0INT 152.0

Adjusted 4th: ___3/11 24 2.2 0TD 0INT 39.6

Saints________ C/ATT YDS AVG_ TD_ INT_RATING

First 3 quarters: 12/16 174 10.9 1 TD 1INT 104.7

4th quarter: ____4/15 50 3.33 1TD 0INT 63.2

Garbage time: ___N/A

Adjusted 4th: ___N/A

*Alternate:

First 3 quarters: 13/20 179 8.95 2TD 1INT 106.0

4th: 3/11 45 4.09 0TD 0INT 44.1

Falcons_______ C/ATT YDS AVG_ TD_ INT_RATING

First 3 quarters: 15/24 163 6.79 0TD 1INT 65.1

4th quarter: ____6/11 74 6.7 0TD 2INT 36.0

Garbage time: ___5/8 62 7.8 0TD 1INT 46.9

Adjusted 4th: ___1/3 12 4.0 0TD 1INT 6.9%

*Alternate:

Garbage time: ___5/7 62 7.8 0TD 0INT 98.5

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Definitions

Garbage time: an offensive possession in the final minutes or seconds of the 4th quarter where the scoring outcome of the drive cannot alter the outcome of the game(i.e. losing by more than 8 points)

Adjusted rating: just the normal 4th quarter QB rating minus garbage time stats

Advanced rating: depending on the school of thought you subscribe to, advanced analysts include QB sacks against their passing attempts, and negative yards against their passing yards

Advanced adjusted: the advanced rating minus garbage time

*Alternate: see below

RECAP: Cam Newton's QB rating in our 5 losses

First 3 quarters average rating: 86.9

4th quarter rating: 73.4

Advanced 4th quarter rating: 67.7

Adjusted(aka "real", not including garbage time) 4th quarter rating: 57.4

Adv. Adj. 4th quarter rating: 49.5

Garbage time QB rating: 102.9

So basically if you just look at your regular, full 4th quarter rating, he drops from an above average of 86.9 during the first 3 quarters to a sub-par 73.4 in the 4th. Now where it gets interesting is when you consider that taking out garbage time stats he drops to a Clausenesque 57.4. This is atrocious. And if you happen to subscribe to advanced stat school of thought he's total 4th quarter rating is a pretty ugly 67.7 and taking out garbage time drops him down to a shameful 49.5.

Conclusion: How much does the pressure to ,make a combeack win late in the 4th quarter affect Cam? Well he goes from an above average 86.9 passer rating in the first 3 quarters down to a 57.4(49.5 adv) when driving to come back from behind in the 4th. Immobilizing I would say.

The irony? His garbage time rating is a 102.9, better than any other quarter rating or average, and better than his career rating of 82.8.

*Alternate:

Just for some tongue in cheek humor I threw in some alternate stats. It moves the 3rd quarter drive from the Saints game that spilled over into the 4th for 2 minutes, his only passing TD drive outside of garbage time, back to the third and wipes off his Hail Mary interception in the Falcons game, which is a garbage time negative that should not count against him. As expected, his third quarter average improves to 87.2 while his adjusted 4th quarter rating plummets even further to 45.7. Now that's not all that exciting compared to his actual numbers but what is worth pointing out is his garbage time rating. It actually goes up to an elite 120.1! So he can be elite in the 4th but only when it doesn't count:(

Now just add the Vikings game to that(don't feel like color coding it): 22/35 290 117.6

First three quarters:14/25 234 127.3

4th quarter:7/10 56 0 0 75.4

Garbage: NA

Adjusted:NA

Advanced:

7/11 48 0 0 65.3

And your current results are this:

First three quarters: 93.63

4th quarter comeback game/game winning: 60.0 QB rating

Sack adjusted: 52.0 in our 6 losses.

I didn't bother with the alternate. His garbage time remains the same because there was no garbage time in the Vikings game, it came down to the last second.

[carpanfan96]

NFL.com says your stats are wrong.... His 4th quarter rating when with in 7 is 75, overall it's a 84.4 for his 4th quarter rating. When behind by 8 points or less no mater where in the game his QB rating is 79.6, when the game is tied its 96.3

[teeray]

A couple of more things and then I am off to bed.

One when you are trying to move the ball down the field in a hurry your QB rating and completion percentage are typically going to go down because your passes are deeper and coverage know you have to pass.

Secondly, looking back on it we only had three games where we had the ball for the last drive with a chance to tie or win. Arizona, NO, and Minn.

In the Arizona game Cam got sacked when a receiver ran the wrong route on third and goal, in the NO game we were trying to drive 55 yards in 50 seconds and if I remember correctly there were several drops and a holding call on Gross, and the Minn game we missed the game tying field goal.

And lastly, I don't really care about QB rating. I don't think in 2008 that Chad Pennington was better than Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, and Aaron Rodgers. Nor do I think he was the second best QB in the NFL that year.

So all in all I feel pretty good about Cam in those situations. Once we clean up some of the self inflicted wounds we will be fine.

PS- it is funny to me that Pantherball is all about advanced statistics now but when we were talking about our defense last week he didn't want to have anything to do with them ;)

[Pantherball]

I keep seeing talk about garbage time, but the only game we've had that had any garbage time was the Washington game, and that's because we were the ones up by so much...

Well it depends on your definition but for this statistical analysis I used when you are down by 2 scores or more with not enough time on the clock to tie the game without the successful completion of an onside kick which has a ~15% rate of success when the other team expects it. And there were 3:

GB: down 2 scores. O got the ball back with 2:14 left starting at Car 17.

Bears: down 2 scores. O go the ball back with 1:23 left starting at Car 23.

Falcons: down 2 to scores. O got the ball back with 1:56 left starting at Car 22.

Also our statistical win/loss probability:

GB: 3:09: 99+%

Bears: 1:48: 99+%

Falcons: 2:00: 99+%

http://live.advancednflstats.com/weekly.php?gameid2=55241&week=6

Our chances of winning were 1% or less prior to the times our offense even got the ball back needing 2 scores and an onside kick conversion.

I used both. So there you have it. Garbage time. Or The Golden Calf of Bristol time if you will;)

[Pantherball]

NFL.com says your stats are wrong.... His 4th quarter rating when down and with in 7 is 75, overall it's a 84.4 for his 4th quarter rating. When behind by 8 points or less no mater where in the game his QB rating is 79.6, when the game is tied its 96.3

Yes overall it's 84.4. But as far as the rest, you are describing something completely different from what I am giving you. If you are looking at situational stats at NFL.com the next two numbers you have describe his ratings for the entire game.

You are looking at this, right?

http://www.nfl.com/player/camnewton/2495455/situationalstats

That is not a 4th quarter statistic for when he is down or tied at NFL.com. They don't break it down. Again, you'll have to find a real NFL advanced statistics site to get what I did. Maybe places like this: live.advancednflstats.com

But they only do it rarely for specific QB's and they don't do it for just any QB. I'm sure they will tackle it sooner or later if this keeps up so let's hope they never do so you guys should be paying me for this;)

So no, I'm not wrong. It's not impossible that I may have missed a completion or two, but I double check my math and the numbers are all there for you to double check my figures yourself if you would like.

[redbuddha]

Hidden Racism!

[carpanfan96]

I know it's when the teams are with in 7 points, that being either up 7, tied or down 7. That's the time when you need your QB the most, he's performed over and over again. It can't keep falling on his shoulders at the end of every single game to pull it out. He's got to get help from the defense and ST's.

If you use advanced stats then he's clearly a top 5-10 QB, he's top 5 in EPA, EPAP, deep %, AYPA. 13th in WPA and WPAG. His DYAR is top ten, DVOA is 12th.

The losses aren't just on Cam Newton, you can't just judge a QB by wins and losses. You also can't judge a rookie QB on 4th quarter effectiveness. The NFL game is tougher on the body both physically and mentally, it takes time to adjust to.

Peyton Manning, John Elway, Steve Young, Brett Favre, Dan Marino and Troy Aikman's rookie season's attest to that. I'm not discrediting your stats and your compiling of them. What I'm saying is that the Panthers team is bad, injured and everything falls onto Cam's shoulder's to get it done. When you factor everything in, he's done a fantastic job. Of course there's room for improvement, but he's on his way to being the best QB in the NFL. A bit more polish here and there and he's there.