Who’s Afraid Of A Big, Black, Unbeaten Quarterback?
Carolina Panthers star Cam Newton is riding high atop the NFL, and he’s doing it his way.
To say that Cam Newton has been under heavy scrutiny from the start of his NFL career would be untrue. It actually started even earlier.
Anyone in need of a reminder need only consult Newton’s trip to the “Gruden QB Camp.” Back in April 2011, the then-Auburn QB took the trip to the ESPN analyst’s film room, an experience that’s now an annual ritual for top draft prospects. After a season in which he threw for 30 touchdowns, ran for 20 more, won the Heisman Trophy, and led his team to an undefeated national championship season, Newton’s collegiate credentials were basically beyond reproach. So naturally, the portion of the made-for-TV special that got everyone talking revolved around his readiness for professional play-calling.
“Call something at Auburn that’s a little verbal,” asks Gruden, after running through some ‘Spider 2 Y Banana’-style jargon. “What would be a little verbal? Any recollection on that? What’s an Auburn play sound like?”
“You’re putting me on the spot,” replies Cam with a smile.
“You guys don’t get in the huddle much, right?”
“We really don’t, and our method is: simplistic equals fast.”
Instead, some who saw the clip decided that simplistic equaled, well, simplistic, with plenty questioning Newton’s aptitude, his ability to decipher and execute an NFL offense. His physical gifts were undeniable, and so the pre-draft conversation revolved around his “makeup” and “character” (due to some money allegedly changing hands during his recruitment, and a laptop theft from his earlier time at Florida) and, yes, his “intelligence.” So when Newton was unable to immediately produce something “verbal” to satisfy the hungry NFL media complex, others had no difficulty filling the void.
“Very disingenuous — has a fake smile, comes off as very scripted and has a selfish, me-first makeup. Always knows where the cameras are and plays to them. Has an enormous ego with a sense of entitlement that continually invites trouble and makes him believe he is above the law — does not command respect from teammates and always will struggle to win a locker room. Only a one-year producer. Lacks accountability, focus and trustworthiness — is not punctual, seeks shortcuts and sets a bad example. Immature and has had issues with authority. Not dependable.”
Suffice it to say that with the Panthers at 14–0, and Cam Newton the current consensus favorite for league MVP, Nolan Nawrocki’s Pro Football Weekly scouting report, authored back in the Spring of 2011, has not aged well.
Or, as Deadspin staff writer Greg Howard puts more bluntly:
“That guy is a raging racist,” says Howard, upon being reminded of Nawrocki’s now infamous breakdown, “And I guess even worse than that, maybe he’s a raging troll. I don’t think anyone should — or really does anymore — put any stock into what he says.”
Back in February 2014, Howard was the lead author on Deadspin’s “Big Book of Black Quarterbacks,” an exhaustive effort to find, name, and write about every black man to have taken QB snaps in the NFL’s history. It is a fascinating catalog that’s well worth reading, exploring history, culture, and race relations. As such, it’s hard to imagine many more qualified than Howard to discuss how Newton’s career, and the conversation that surrounds it, has unfolded to this point.
“What you see is, people are, they’re forced to look off the field for his flaws,” Howard said, “and that’s … that’s fucking nice and everything — like that if you’re invested in showing him as a flawed character, I mean sure, we’re all flawed. It’s really great that there’s very little you can say about him on the field anymore, because he’s undefeated. … Clearly, it has nothing to do with his on-field performance, and so people are starting to tell on themselves, and they’re starting to get exposed for what they are, which is probably racists.”
“One of the tricky things with black quarterbacks that always comes up,” adds Bomani Jones, ESPN TV commentator and host of The Right Time on ESPN Radio, “[is] the question is always asked of them if they’re going to be able to figure out how to run these offenses, and it’s just typically assumed that white guys will figure it out.”
“I think that Cam had kinda forced the paradigm to shift on that to a degree,” adds Jones, “because just think, you can’t do what you’ve never done. … Now, what Cam had going for him is that he was physically gifted enough that as those things came along and he gained greater familiarity with them, he could still survive, like he could still win games.”
“I think a lot of black football fans are happy to see black quarterbacks, specifically, do well,” adds Howard, “For me, if it’s a young black quarterback who is offensive to people … it’s really about the reaction to them, and for so long, the narrative was that black men didn’t have the ability or the leadership qualities to be a quarterback.”
Ah yes, “leadership.” That nebulous term that, as most sports fans have grown familiar with, can be used as a cudgel against any athlete who celebrates, who speaks out of turn, who refuses to conform to someone else’s idea of how a star player ought to behave. The story that has developed this season, as the Panthers win game after game, is that Newton has grown — as a leader, and as a man — from the player whose team often struggled early in his career.
Just a few weeks ago, though, Newton himself made clear that he’s heard that tale, and he roundly rejects it.
“I’ve got a lot of questions about my leadership, about what makes this team go,” said Newton in a weekly media session, “But this is the same person that people critiqued and analyzed when I first came into this league and used to sulk under the towel … it’s the same person. Nothing has pretty much changed. It’s just we’re winning. I say it often, and I’ll say it again, winning sweeps a lot of things under the table.”
“He’s one of those guys that when he’s losing, he’s a Debbie Downer,” relates Jones, “He’s a real mopey sort of guy when they lose. Now they’re winning, and he’s enjoying every bit of the fact that they’re winning.”
That enjoyment has, on plenty of occasions, rubbed reporters, pundits, and “Tennessee moms” the wrong way, and according to Jones, much of the judgement and scorn that’s directed Newton’s way traces all the way back to his college career. Back in the fall of 2010, Newton’s Auburn eligibility appeared to be in jeopardy due to allegations that he, or his family, had been compensated during his recruitment from junior college.
“They’ll never forget that when this all started coming down,” recalls Jones. “He runs off the field before, I think it was the Georgia game, with the biggest smile in the world on his face, right in front of the student section. And part of why people hate him so much, I’ve always believed, is that he went through all of that without an apology. He never once apologized for anything, and people felt like he got away with something, and he smiled in their faces the whole way.”
“It’s great that he doesn’t apologize for who he is,” notes Howard, whose entry on Newton in “The Big Book” revolves largely around the absurd notion of athletic performance being derived from someone’s idea of character. And it’s inescapable, in the world of sports media, that the “someone” is usually older, and male, and white. Perhaps that’s why Cam has become such a delightful foil for these outdated notions of what athletes must be.
“There’s so much that you hear about athletes, especially black athletes,” continues Howard, “They’re arrogant, they’re distractions. What good athlete wasn’t [or] isn’t arrogant? I think that’s a requisite trait you have, you have to have the belief that you’re one of the best. … You know, it’s nuts, and it’s bullshit, and it’s a way to keep black quarterbacks under foot. It’s a way to tell them to know their role even though they’re in charge of a 53-man team. So it’s good to see any young athlete — but in this case, a young black quarterback — on the top of his game, and not apologizing for having fun.”
Newton has had plenty of fun this season, by handing out footballs to adorable children, by making sure that his home stadium stays on brand, and, of course, by dancing like nobody’s watching. But all of the joy, all the unbridled energy, all the perfect photographs, it’s all possible only because of his high-level play that’s been turned in on a consistent basis. 7.75 yards per passing attempt. A passer rating of 98.9. Thirty-three touchdown passes, and another seven scores on the ground.
The numbers are solid, if unspectacular, but, as noted by Steven Ruiz, Cian Fahey, and others, they fail to paint a complete picture. A supporting cast that is (to be kind) pedestrian at best has put more of a burden on Cam to extend drives himself, to take on more of the offensive burden. And Newton has shouldered it all year long, with a captivating smile.
Yes, this is the same smile that Nawrocki called “fake” back when Newton entered the league, and all these years later, it’s still not any easier to figure out what the hell that was even supposed to mean. If a player refuses to let the grueling nature of competition, the violent aspects of the game, the invasive gaze of the media, if he won’t allow any of it to rob him of his smile, is that “fake?” Or is it the sort of optimism and determination that we all should strive for? The burden continues to fall on Cam Newton to prove himself in a way most observers find acceptable, and undoubtedly this constant need to prove himself has more than a little to do with the color of his skin.
“I think that we’re kinda knee deep in the first generations of people who have been explicitly told that racism is wrong,” posits Jones. “And it’s almost impossible for anybody not to pick these things up because they’re all over the place, but once it happens, I think that people generally are not very good at saying that they’re wrong, and it’s very difficult for anybody of any persuasion to wind up talking about race in this country, and not, in some way, expose themselves as being wrong.”
“I think when you’re in a sport where manhood is so overvalued and mythologized,” adds Howard, “and when you combine that with ‘what makes a good man’ — and generally that’s not a young, brash, clearly urban black person — you’re going to get arguments and observations that don’t bear out in practice. … A lot of people look to bullshit things like that, because it’s a way of explaining away their own prejudices.”
It is, indeed, encouraging to see Newton find success, to rise above the morass, particularly in a year that has seen two other promising young quarterbacks with at least some black heritage swallowed up by the harsh realities of the NFL.
Robert Griffin III was the NFL’s offensive rookie of the year, and the man who might have led Washington back to glory, until injuries, stubborn coaches, and organizational incompetence landed him a permanent seat on the bench lest he accidentally trigger an option year in his contract that was guaranteed in the event of injury. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Colin Kaepernick (who is of mixed race) has gone from Super Bowl starter and a player that at least one QB guru proclaimed could become one of the best ever, to an unceremonious benching and then a spot on the injured reserve list.
The NFL remains forever harsh, and cruel, and unforgiving, and if, somehow, a player finds a way to navigate through it all, well, then why shouldn’t he enjoy himself?
“I think Cam Newton’s really valuable because he’s really exposing how much of a joke some of this is,” says Howard, “and how much of a terrible, self-serious toxic culture football is. … It’s not war, you know? It’s not serious. These aren’t really high stakes, and when you see Cam Newton enjoying the game for what it is, and then you see the people who are infuriated by it, who seems more right? You look over the course of their career, who has been more right? I think Cam Newton speaks to a generational shift, and a shift in how we look at sports — how we look at football specifically. And more and more, we’ve become smarter, and we’ve become less racist, as a media body.”
And yet, even as Newton’s success becomes undeniable, even as an MVP award, an undefeated season, and a Super Bowl victory all loom as possibilities, questions still remain about the lasting changes they will, or won’t, facilitate. Can this unimpeachably fantastic season, this stirring rebuke to the critics, this lesson about how we pre-judge so many black quarterbacks, actually shatter certain stereotypes for good?
“I think it’ll change things for him,” answered Jones. “There’s a certain immutability that comes from being anointed a champion. That, no one will ever be able to take away from him. Now, it won’t affect anybody else. It will not affect another soul. The next black quarterback that comes around will have to deal with the same questions, because I just don’t think people are honest, with themselves, about just how ingrained these notions are.”
“People are going to have to be more self aware, I think, before there winds up being a seismic change,” he continued, “and having this happen with one of the most spectacular talents we’ve ever seen — like even if he’s not yet one of the best players we’ve ever seen, he is one of the most spectacular talents we’ve ever seen. That will always be the exception, when you’ve got to be Superman like Cam Newton.”
These days, Newton has no problem whatsoever providing something that’s “a little verbal” for his legions of fans. He’s spoken thoughtfully about learning from his mistakes, most notably the stolen laptop arrest that jeopardized his college football career. He’s opened up about his own gratitude for life, one year after a freak car accident that could easily have caused more serious injuries. And yes, he has made it quite clear, to anyone listening, that he knows full well that the tone surrounding him might change quite quickly if the results on the field turn sour once more.
“If I were doing some of the things that I’m doing now when we were losing, people would find something to point to and say, ‘Well, Cam’s not doing this or this particular quarterback is doing that,’ Newton explained. “It’s just the fact our record is flawless right now, and that’s allowing people to say, ‘Well, maybe we’re not looking at it in this sense.’”
“I don’t think you have to qualify what Cam’s doing as an incredible moment, or a watershed moment, for black quarterbacks,” concludes Howard, taking his own broad look, “It certainly is that, but I think the best and most telling thing about Cam Newton is that this is an incredible moment, period. It’s a watershed moment, period. It’s an important historical moment for football, period. It just happens to be a black dude this time.”
“If the Panthers were to win it, and Cam Newton was to sweep all the awards along the way to get there, this would be a season for the ages on a number of levels,” adds Jones. “Everyone says you cannot win playing the style of football that Cam has played, in large part. Cam has become much more of a pocket passer, but at the same time, they still incorporate these elements they said you couldn’t do in the pros. If they were to win it, playing like that, with that guy, a whole lot of people would be proven wrong.”
Regardless of where the wins and losses go from here, let the record show that yes, Cam Newton is a high-level NFL quarterback. But even more important, he’s also himself — an authentic, genuine, delightful breath of fresh air in a league that far too frequently tries to reshape anyone who doesn’t fit its preconceived mold.
He’s a quarterback who dances like a wide receiver. He’s an athletic marvel who refuses to sit in the pocket. He’s a gorgeous performer in an often unsightly sport. He’s a once-in-a-generation talent who knows exactly how good he is, and refuses to apologize for it.
So, sure, maybe Cam Newton doesn’t always speak the NFL’s language. Maybe we’re all better off for it.
