4 major takeaways from Cam Newton’s appearance on The Pivot

Cam Newton blamed himself for walking into bad situations

The past two years have been difficult for Cam Newton. His release by the Carolina Panthers came at a time when teams had already figured out what they were going to do under center, leaving him with no choice other than to join the New England Patriots with little time to learn the playbook before competitive games began in 2020.

Newton had an affection towards the Panthers, which played a role in him deciding to return at a time when the wheels were clearly falling off. The signal-caller took the blame for walking into “f*cked up situations” on The Pivot, highlighting the short timeframe between him signing and taking the field in Carolina as a prime example.

"“I was signed on Thursday, I played on Sunday. At what point did you think you was gonna be successful? That next week, I started. That’s still up under 10 days of you being on the team, and you’re still trying to learn an offense. So before I sit up here and allow the narrative to be made that Cam ain’t got it no more, Cam is taking full responsibility and saying that Cam put himself in a f*cked up situation.”"

The truth is, Newton didn’t have much of a choice in either situation. It was either wait around in 2020 without any sort of training camp or in last year’s case, he probably would have sat out the entire campaign without re-joining the team that drafted him No. 1 overall in 2011.

That’s the long and short of it, really.

Channing Crowder was pretty aggressive in his statements surrounding Newton’s ability to produce the goods once again. But only time will tell as to whether or not this is the end for a player who rapidly became a transcendent figure in Carolina.