How do you define a player as clutch?
Can you use numbers?
Numbers like the second-most points, passing yards and passing touchdowns in the fourth quarters of 2018; numbers like 9-3 in the past two seasons in games decided by seven points or less; numbers like the most wins by that margin since 2013?
Or maybe you’d prefer to use situations.
Situations like down 17 with 12 minutes left where he scores on his final three possessions to win in the Super Bowl Champs’ house. Or a tie ball game against a top conference opponent where he breaks off a 62-yard run to get his team into scoring position as the two-minute warning approaches. Or maybe you like a game-winning fourth quarter drive in which he is 3-for-3 passing and accounts for every yard but one in only his fourth game in the NFL. Or a five play, 65 yard drive that takes only 32 seconds and results in a touchdown.
If you don’t like numbers or situations, but want to make some comparisons, perhaps you’ll probably appreciate this one.
Since he came into the league in 2011, Cam Newton has the same amount of game-winning drives as Tom Brady and more fourth-quarter comebacks than Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger, but yet he doesn’t carry the clutch moniker that those others carry with such cache.
Why is that?
“He gets overlooked because of his style of play. It’s not a prolific style,” said Ron Rivera. “He runs the ball extremely well. He’s not a pure, pure pocket passer, although there are elements of his game where he plays very well from the pocket. He’s good on the move. But again, I think the success he has in the fourth quarter with the comebacks is a lot about his desire wanting to win.”
“I didn’t realize he had as many fourth-quarter comebacks as he’s had, because I know that was a knock on him early on that he hadn’t, but now he has and he’s really stepped to the forefront in that any time there is an opportunity or a situation like that, he’ll tell me ‘Give me that chance, coach, that’s all I want,’ so he wants it, that’s really cool.”
“I guess it’s just that people like to put light on the bad things or on the things that he’s not quite getting done rather than the stuff that he is getting done,” guessed Donte Jackson.
After leading the team on the biggest comeback in franchise history, the first time a team has been shut out on the road for three quarters and come back from 17 down to win since 1985, one would think the country would be abuzz with tales told of Newton’s late-game heroics, but as Torrey Smith put it Thursday, “it’s been crickets.”
“He’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league, hands down – sometimes he doesn’t get the credit that he deserves,” said Jarius Wright about Newton, who needs only 350 more yards to pass Dan Marino for second-most combined yards after a quarterback’s first eight seasons. “I was telling somebody earlier if this was Aaron Rodgers or this was Tom Brady, they’d still be talking about all the way up until Sunday what he’d done against the Eagle defense.”
“They’re not talking about since it’s Cam Newton, but if it was anybody else, this would be a huge deal.”
For Newton, who has led two game-winning drives this season, 17 in his career and won NFC offensive player of the week for this week’s efforts, he constantly wants the ball in his hands – a trait Rivera compared to Michael Jordan earlier this week – and he certainly gets it. Only one play in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s win over the Eagles was neither a pass nor a Newton run – of the 227 yards gained in the fourth quarter, 213 came from Newton.
While Newton and the rest of the team downplay the comebacks – they’d rather play well in the first three quarters then have to scramble back in the fourth quarter – it certainly seems as if there was a bit of kismet to put Newton and the Panthers in the same situation they’d been in the week before against Washington – needing a touchdown as the clock ticks down in a hostile environment. In Washington, the team fell six yards short.
This time, they would not be denied.
“God works in mysterious ways,” said Newton after the game. “I believe in putting good energy in the earth and knowing that when that opportunity presents itself again, you just better be ready for it. We’re lucky to be on this side, because it’s the difference between two or three plays. Every single close game. And today was one of those days.”
Newton has a lot of those days. He just may not get the credit for it.
