Cam Newton still believes in himself, but he also believes in Mac Jones
BOSTON -- Despite going half of last season without a job, and despite remaining without a contract at the moment, Cam Newton believes in his heart of hearts that he is one of the best 32 quarterbacks on the planet.
That being said, almost a year after losing a quarterback competition with Mac Jones in New England, Newton doesn't consider himself to be better than the young Patriots quarterback.
"I was with Mac Jones. Mac Jones gonna be a great quarterback," Newton said on The Pivot Podcast. "I'd put Mac Jones at that 20ish threshold. He a young gun. Obviously with the guys that they're gonna build around him from a defensive, special teams, offensive side, he's gonna be -- he's not the guy I'm talking about."
Just as he did last year in his much-publicized chat with his father, Newton said that the distraction he would bring to a team is why he believes he's not on an NFL roster. He also spoke about his most recent stops in New England and Carolina, saying in both situations that he put himself in "[bleeped]-up situations."
"This is me acknowledging that I understood, I'll own up to jumping up into some [bleeped]-up situations. The New England experience, was a [bleeped]-up situation," Newton said. "I was still learning the offense seven to eight weeks into the season. OK, I'm learning systems mentally, right? As a quarterback, it's not just, 'Can you catch?' It's not just ... you can disguise that. We've all been around teams where it's like, 'Ready, break! ... What I got?' As a quarterback, you have to look the part, act the part, and be the part, right? So there was countless hours with Jedd Fisch, there was countless hours with Josh McDaniels, there was countless hours with so many different people who were trying to teach me certain things, and it was just brain overload. So there was times I'm going to the line, and I'm still thinking. I'm thinking about the enunciation of the play, I'm thinking about forgetting my motions, I'm thinking about my sight-adjust, I'm thinking about certain things. So that's the [bleeped]-up situation.
"Did I know [the offense]? Yes. To the degree that I needed to know it in order to show the world that I am still Cam Newton? No. I didn't," Newton added. "But I put myself in that situation."