WindCityHawk":3tcr7qug said:
I'm not usually one to bang the East Coast Bias drum, but reading all the hype leading up to the big game next week, it's hard not to feel slighted as a Seahawks fan. I'm seeing article after article about how Cam Newton is the best dual threat QB ever, or how he's the next Brady or Manning, particularly since he's going against Manning and it sets up this "passing the mantle" narrative.
Maybe it's only because Newton is playing next weekend and Wilson isn't, but isn't Wilson the one racking up records left and right for passer rating, passing efficiency, quantifiable dual threat numbers (first to combine 4k passing and 500 rushing)? Wins? And hasn't he already beat Manning on the biggest stage? Newton is good at his job, don't get me wrong, but how has he somehow leap-frogged Wilson in the public eye when all he's done is less?
FYI....Cam passed for over 4051 yards as a rookie which was a record and rushed for 741 yards and scored 14 rushing Tds which is an all-time Qb record. So no Russell was not the first to reach that plateau.
Basically when Cam was coming out of college it was so much garbage spewed by the media oh why this guy shouldn't be the #1 player taken, You had "experts" actually saying Blaine Gabbert and Jake Locker were better prospects at the position. And then Cam explodes onto the scene his rookie season, breaking passing records back to back in his first 2 games and resurrecting a Panthers offense that was dead last a season prior to him being drafted. Players like RG3 owe Cam a debt of gratitude, because after the Vince Young debacle teams had started to steer away from the mobile athletic Qb and or drafting them high, but after Cam's explosive rookie year he made that trend relevant again. As a matter of fact personally I think the Redskins organization sought a Qb in the draft with a RG3 skill set, solely how Cam Newton destroyed that team his rookie season.
And then comes the sophomore slump and our ex offensive coordinator season long resume for a head coaching job, Cam slumped and the team slumped, and now you have this new wave of young Qbs, Luck, Wilson, Kaepernick, RG3, and Cam becomes the forgotten one and all the rage was for the aforementioned guys and who would be the best among that crop. All the while Ron Rivera is cutting his teeth as a head coach shedding his conservative approach and becoming Riverboat Ron, Panthers fire their old Gm who had the team in Cap-hell and stripped of talent down the roster, Cam is slowly learning how to play the the game from the pocket, while the rest of the league still thinks he's just some 1 read, zone option Qb. And then it finally comes the together the talent of the collective 53 man roster improvement, matched with a uber-talented superstar who had quietly had matured in a small market was ready to take the league by storm.
It's similar to when Jordan entered the NBA, you had this guy who obviously was all world in talent, but his team didn't win at first, there were more complete teams in the way such as the Celtics, Pistons... But then Jordan finally figured it out, not just break records and scoring titles, but how to win. How to elevate the team around you.
And I think Cam figured it all out this year, how to win by elevating the players around him, and now the sky is the limit. Not saying that the Seahawks were the Panther's "Pistons" and Russell was Isaiah Thomas to Newton's Jordan. But I think you have two young teams with gifted Qbs who should be in the running for NFC supremacy for the next few years.
