This is a big year for Cam Newton. The Carolina Panthers' quarterback has had his health speculated about relentlessly, and he needs to put all the talk to rest. The Panthers started hot last year with a 6-2 record over the first half of the season, and it seemed like they were destined for the playoffs.
Then Newton's shoulder deteriorated. Newton tried to play through it, but things got so bad he could barely throw the ball down the field. The Panthers went on a long losing streak, and eventually, they shut Newton down with a couple of games to go. Perhaps due to concern about Newton's shoulder, the Panthers raised a few eyebrows when they drafted Will Grier in the third round of last month's draft.
Grier was a somewhat divisive prospect, but many analysts thought very highly of him, and there was a lot of talk that he could go in the second round. Although Grier was the fifth quarterback taken, Pro Football Focus shared an interesting stat where he ranks higher than that:
Will Grier had the draft's third-highest passer rating from a clean pocket in 2018 pic.twitter.com/G6GuAQIIgu
— PFF (@PFF) May 13, 2019
Grier was the draft's third-highest rated passer when throwing from a clean pocket. Grier won't be playing unless something goes terribly wrong, but it's still worth noting. Newton is on the wrong side of 30 now, and he's now had multiple shoulder surgeries. The initial hope was he'd be able to avoid surgery after the season, but he ended up undergoing another procedure on his throwing shoulder.
The hope is that Newton will be able to participate in training camp, but nothing is guaranteed. Shoulder's can often be tricky, as we've seen with Andrew Luck. As far as insurance policies go, it looks like the Panthers could've done a lot worse than Grier.
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