Cam Newton Rushed For More Yards Yesterday Than Tom Brady Did in 13 of His 18 Seasons As The Patriots Starting QB

Even though they both play the quarterback position, Tom Brady and Cam Newton do not have similar skill sets, but as animal abusers say "there's more than one way to skin a cat".  

Brady's career completion % is 63.8; Cam's is sub-60 at at 59.7%. It took Tom Brady until his 19th season (2018) to amass 1,000 career rushing yards; Cam did in less than a season and a half. 

Despite a victory in his Patriot debut, I'm not about to be some lunatic who thinks Cam Newton is all of a sudden the best QB in the NFL or that his accomplishments in one game erase the career and accomplishments of the greatest QB to ever play the game. The dude threw the ball 19 times yesterday; 15-19 for 155 yards. Although, none of his incompletions were crazy overthrows or miscommunications. 

Cam’s four incompletions yesterday:
- one drop
- two tipped at line of scrimmage
- one throwaway facing pressure

His 78.9% completion percentage is a mark that Brady hasn’t hit since Week 11, 2017 vs. OAK.pic.twitter.com/0pzq7jubP2

— Tucker Boynton (@Tucker_TnL) September 14, 2020

A N'Keal Harry fumble made the game appear much closer than it truly was, but as Bill Belichick has said 50 million times "it's hard to win in the NFL". I think this was a great sign for week one. Every other QB making his first start with a new team lost. While the passing game might've not been super exciting; what Cam accomplished on the ground was.

the Pats went to their best player in high leverage situations, and it worked. weird.

-inverted veer
-zone read
-QB draw
-QB sweep
-naked bootleg

McDaniels has to be in heaven pic.twitter.com/QpdJcREBym

— KP (@KP_Show) September 14, 2020

Like the final song of Co-Op: The Musical, things are going up in New England.

Belichick: I'm not saying it's the best executed game in the history of football but we did some good things

— Mark Daniels (@MarkDanielsPJ) September 13, 2020

With the exception of one (1) Jacoby Brissett start against the Texans in 2016, we've (Patriot fans born after Steve Grogan's peak of 1976-1980) never seen a Patriots QB run like this before.

Jacoby Brissett designed rush attempts from 2016 when TB12 and Jimmy G were out pic.twitter.com/loKjIEXNjp

— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) July 8, 2020

Now I'm not saying this was like the ending of the Sixth Sense in terms of shock (haven't even seen it, but I know pop culture!), but knowing Cam only (not in a bad way, I'll take it all fucking day) ran for 75 yards yesterday I found this stat surprising.

Cam Newton has more rushing yards today than Tom Brady did in 13 out of his 18 seasons with the Patriots.

New look New England. pic.twitter.com/hyDxnRz7fh

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) September 13, 2020

I did love seeing Brady run the ball during his time here, but I guess it happened way less frequently than I remember. In 2001, '03, '04, '09, '10 and '12-'19 Tom Brady did not surpass the 75 yard mark for the season. Fun Fact: Cam Newton now has 10 NFL starts with 75 or more rushing yards (three 100+ games).

Tom Brady finished his Patriot career averaging a whopping 4.69 (nice) rushing yards a game; Cam averages 5.1 yard/carry.

Now if Cam can just get 16.6666666666666666666666666666666% of Brady's rings.