After not appearing in an NFL game since Sept. 12, 2019, Cam Newton finally got back out on the football field Sunday, helping lead the New England Patriots to a 21-11 win over the Miami Dolphins.
Newton carried the load for New England most of the day, completing 15 of 19 passes for 155 yards while also carrying the ball 15 times for 75 yards and two scores.
“I think I missed this victoriously sore feeling,” Newton said while appearing on WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show Monday morning.
The 15 rushing attempts were the second highest total of Newton’s career, causing the sore after-effects. Newton, who missed the majority of the 2019 season due to a Lisfranc injury to his left foot after his 2018 season ended early due to shoulder surgery, isn’t concerned about injury risk if the high volume of carries continues.
“There’s many different ways to attack a defense, and having a quarterback run is just another added dimension that a lot of teams can’t have,” said Newton. “Yet through it all, I have to make a contentious decision each and every time I do run the ball to be smart. Not to get ahead of myself and trying to prove a point. As long as I run, and take care of myself and get down with need be, then I feel like everything will be OK.”
Newton did not take many hits throughout the game, as he has shifted his focus more on sliding and avoiding contact when in the open field.
“I just feel like that’s how my running style how kind of morphed over the years. I just feel like I have gotten better at it from the time I got in the league to the time now. People always see the running amount, but the same time, the toll on the runner is not the same as a running back.
“Quarterbacks all alike have this invisible rule to be able to get down in the open field rather than finish the run as other positions would like to do. Either I’m the hammer and not the nail — delivering the blow. Or at the end of the day, I can get down and, like they all say, live to fight another day,” he said on WEEI.
Avoiding contact after the game did not go as planned for Newton however, as tempers flared with multiple Dolphin players during postgame. Newton, who had to be restrained by several of his teammates, confirmed on WEEI that some Dolphins tried to rip his chain off.
“From where I am from, that’s just a sign of disrespect,” he said. “I am all about keeping everything within the confines of the game. ... Good thing I went to a good jeweler and got the credentials. They didn’t do too much damage.”
Newton went on to add: “On a serious note, it is a chain that has all of my children and their birthstone on it. You could only imagine for all the fathers that’s out there any type of sign disrespect for that chain.”
The video of the altercation ended with what appeared to be Newton grabbing his hamstring, but he assured there was no issue.
“I don’t know where that came from,” Newton said. “I didn’t have no hamstring problems. We won, so that means I’m not hurt no more.”
Coming off their big Week 1 win, Newton and the Patriots will travel to Seattle to take on the Seahawks on Sunday night.
“We just got to be prepared,” he said. “We have to put our working hat back on and get prepared for Seattle, knowing that they are a great team with or without the fans. Just make sure we can control the things that we can control and preparation is one of those things to put the best product on the field.”
Thoughts on Newton and the Patriots Week 1 performance? Leave a comment below or let me know on Twitter @iambrianhines.