Despite a shocking loss to the Denver Broncos on Sunday, New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton says that now is not the time to hit the “panic button.”
“There’s no need to press the panic button. There’s no need to start reinventing the wheel. We have the answers in that locker room,” Newton said during his weekly interview on sports radio WEEI on Monday (h/t ESPN’s Mike Reiss).
Newton struggled mightily during the loss, going 17-of-25 for 157 yards with two interceptions for New England. It was his first game back after testing positive for COVID-19 back on October 2nd.
“I just have to be better, and I can’t stress that enough moving forward. The anticipation was off. I think that was the biggest discrepancy in not having practice,” he said in the radio interview. “Usually in most times, you can throw it way before the receiver is looking for it and be on the money with it. But not having practice for as long as I [haven’t] had practice, it just showed.”
Newton says that his struggles were more about missing game time.
“It goes back to anticipation” Newton said of Sunday’s performance.
“I knew I was going to get hit. I knew what route he was running, but that’s just a thing that I didn’t see it all week in practice,” Newton continued. “Knowing what he had, him being faced with different circumstances of the leverage of the defender [to the inside of the field], I have to be better.
“I want to make that perfectly clear. I have to play better football for the New England Patriots, and I will. I heard a person say once ‘I don’t point fingers, I point thumbs.’ I take full responsibility of where we are as an offense.”
Despite the obvious struggles, Newton expressed his confidence that the Patriots can get back to winning.
“The grass is not always greener on the other side, a wise man once told me that. It just comes down to us producing better and playing situational football better,” Newton said. “Going back and mentally looking back at the game, that was a sloppy display of football, for the first couple of series — different people taking turns making mistakes, and that can not happen.
“Offensive football is the ultimate team sport, where even one person not doing their job, it shows. I think it showed yesterday.”
