It isn’t often that an NFL team makes a signing and fans of a different team breathe the biggest sigh of relief, but that feels like what happened with fans of the Washington Football Team when news broke on Friday morning. Cam Newton isn’t coming to D.C. to reunite with Ron Rivera and much of his former coaching staff.
The New England Patriots re-signed quarterback Cam Newton to an extension that on the surface is worth up to $14 million, though there are many incentives in place.
Truthfully, it doesn’t seem like he was ever really a strong candidate to come to Washington, either. Though fans were rightfully worried that Rivera would follow his recent trends of stacking the deck with as many former Carolina Panthers in D.C. as possible, once we saw Newton stay on the market for so long last season without Washington giving him a real look, it told us all that we need to know. It may have never been public knowledge, but look at the response from a number of reporters in Washington once the news came out on Friday.
Anybody bringing up Cam Newton to WFT this offseason received the stink eye from me. Could have signed Cam for nothing last year and instead Rivera traded a 5th for Kyle Allen. Then, for whatever the reason, Cam didn't exactly kill it in NE. Wasn't that complicated.
— Ben Standig (@BenStandig) March 12, 2021
Was not an option here. Nothing had ever changed from last year… https://t.co/JCz4neVy75
— John Keim (@john_keim) March 12, 2021
For the fact checkers, here’s the receipt. From Feb. 25th https://t.co/kIQtpj0JrA pic.twitter.com/6Us982Gik7
— JP Finlay (@JPFinlayNBCS) March 12, 2021
Part of us wanted to believe that Rivera was smarter than to bring in an aging quarterback who didn’t seem to have any arm strength left, but sometimes you have to be careful and hope for the best.
For Washington fans, the best happened on Friday. Cam is staying in New England, and we can take that giant quarterback rumor that nobody seemed to want off the table.
