Last year, when the Eagles beat the Panthers 45-21 in Week 10, Cam Newton was dealing with an ankle injury that clearly slowed him down.
This year?
On Sunday night, the Eagles will have to try to stop the healthy and dangerous dual-threat quarterback.
“We’ll have a game plan for him,” Eagles defensive end Cedric Thornton said. “We’re not intimidated by Cam Newton. He’s a great player. We played him before. I think we’ll be ready. … I know we’ll be ready.”
But it won’t be easy, stopping Newton.
Sure, his passing numbers aren’t eye-popping. Newton has thrown for 1,078 yards in five games, which ranks him 26th in the league. But Newton lost his top weapon, Kelvin Benjamin, for the season and still has the Panthers off to a 5-0 start. And when he needed to ramp up his play last week in the waning moments against the Seahawks, he did.
Newton went 12 for 15 for 162 yards in the fourth quarter to lead Carolina’s come-from-behind win in Seattle.
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“When the game’s big, when the moment’s big, that’s when Cam’s at his best,” Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly said in a conference call on Wednesday.
What makes Newton so dangerous isn’t just his arm. He’s a true dual-threat quarterback and the first the Eagles have seen this year.
He’s second on his team in rushing with 225 yards, which ranks him 38th among all NFL players. To put it into perspective, he has just 14 fewer rushing yards than DeMarco Murray.
Not bad for a guy who’s 6-foot-4, 245 pounds.
“He’s a big guy but that’s not taking credit away from his ability,” linebacker Vinny Curry said. “He can throw the ball, he can run the ball. He’s a good quarterback.”
Even though Newton was hobbled during last year’s contest against the Eagles, the Birds still used a spy on the mobile quarterback, a tactic defensive coordinator Bill Davis plans on implementing again on Sunday night.
Last year, the Eagles used 6-4/264-pound Connor Barwin in the spy role and it worked — Barwin had 3½ sacks in the game.
“Connor has got a good mix of size, speed and athleticism, and is a good matchup,” Davis said. “So we did spy him last year with Connor, and it was because of how big he is.”
Davis said his defense at least has an idea of how to stop a running quarterback because of facing the read-option and triple-option in practice this offseason. (Thanks, Tim Tebow!)
But that was more than six weeks ago.
“There’s not much you can do this week to get ready for it,” said Barwin, who added that he needed to remember what it was like to face Newton, Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson last year. “You can rep it but there’s nobody out here who can replicate what Cam can do on Sunday night.”
Aside from Newton’s designed runs on first and second down and even his scramble runs on third down, he has the unique ability to buy extra time in the pocket with his legs. And he’s been sacked just 10 times all season. The Eagles sacked a gimpy Newton nine times in last year's game.
According to Pro Football Focus, Newton ranks fifth in the league in average time per pass attempt (2.65 seconds) behind Tyrod Taylor, Teddy Bridgewater, Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers. What do all those quarterbacks have in common? The ability to buy extra time in the pocket.
That means Newton, on average, holds the ball 2.65 seconds before throwing his passes. While many quarterbacks, like Eli Manning, try to get the ball out quickly, Newton's ability to move around in the pocket gives him extra time to throw.
“You can put my grandmother out there and have her run a route. If she has six seconds, she might get open,” safety Malcolm Jenkins said. “It’s really hard to cover somebody for that long. So extending a play, that’s when big plays happen, regardless of who’s the quarterback, but especially [Newton].”