This is Cam Newton’s team

After Cam Newton agreed to sign with the Patriots on June 28th, many people pegged Newton as the clear heir to the quarterback throne in New England. Prior to the signing of Cam Newton it seemed like the Patriots were going to roll with the young Jarrett Stidham, or journeyman Brian Hoyer. Even after the Patriots inked Cam Newton, Belichick refused to name a starter. Belichick wanted to see how training camp played out before he made any decisions. There were too many question marks heading into camp about all three quarterbacks. Would Cam Newton show up to camp healthy? Would Jarrett Stidham make a leap from year one to year two? Would Brian Hoyer take hold of the job solely based on his knowledge of the Patriots’ system and familiarity with the offense?

Newton may have the highest pedigree and most accolades coming into the Patriots’ quarterback room, but Bill Belichick could care less about stats and prior history when it comes to evaluating players. Belichick is going to give the starting nod to whichever quarterback gives the Patriots the best chance to win. Whether that was Cam Newton, Jarrett Stidham, or even Brian Hoyer, Belichick would make that call.

Once the preseason was officially cancelled, I felt that Cam Newton had an uphill battle to win the starting job. Newton did not have much time to learn the offense, while Stidham and Hoyer had a leg up on him in that category. When it comes to Belichick, he preaches preparation and dependability. If Newton wouldn’t be able to show what he could truly do in a game situation, I thought it would be difficult for him to win the job.

Stidham even outplayed Newton for the first couple of practices, and some questioned Newton’s health status and his chances of winning the starting job. But, then things went south for Stidham. He threw a plethora of ugly interceptions in practice, most of which were entirely his fault. It was very reminiscent of Jimmy Garoppolo’s practices with the Patriots, but things continued to get worse for Stidham. He suffered a lower body injury that caused him to miss the team portion of recent practices. Stidham really has not thrown much, and the injury reportedly could linger for several weeks. So, this injury basically took Stidham out of the running to win the quarterback job.

That left Brian Hoyer, Brian Lewerke, and Cam Newton as the lone healthy quarterbacks in camp. Newton has outplayed both by a wide margin in camp. Over the last week Newton has really asserted himself as the leader of this team. Whether it’s barking at the defense, cheering on his fellow offensive teammates, Newton’s voice could be heard all across the practice field, and his high energy became contagious among his teammates.

At this point in time, this is Cam Newton’s team. He’s done enough to get the nod week 1 against the Dolphins. The first one in and last one out mindset has been instilled in Newton and has caught Belichick’s attention. Belichick spoke highly of Newton on The Rich Eisen Show.

Being with him every day, he’s an extremely hard-working player, first guy in, last one out type of guy. He really has studied hard and he has spent a lot of extra time trying to learn our offense and our communication and our calls, and nomenclature and so forth. Yeah, I’ve been very impressed with that. He’s done a good job of picking it up. He’s a very skilled athlete and we’re just working through it day-by-day.”

Even Julian Edelman seems to be on board with Cam Newton winning the starting job. He made that obvious on his social media accounts on Tuesday.

Granted, we still have a little more than two weeks before the season begins, but Cam Newton has Belichick and Edelman on his side.

Cam Newton has even been saying the right things in camp. Newton even came out and said that he didn’t even consider the starting job to be his, when he was asked about it.

“Absolutely not, every day is a work day for me. That label is not important to me right now because I know I have so much to get better at, so much that I need to learn, so much that I need to be comfortable with, and throughout this process, that’s the last thing that I’m pretty much worried about, knowing that there are certain things that when I come to the line of scrimmage and it’s just not as firing mentally as I would want it to be rather than other plays that may be called…There are things I know I need to become better at, and until I get those things done, everything else is irrelevant.”

Cam Newton has a chance to re-establish himself as a starting quarterback in this league. Newton is obviously well-regarded by many NFL fans and many people around the game of football, But, the reality is that every single team that was in need of a quarterback passed on Newton. He wasn’t signed on day 1 of free agency, the Patriots weren’t in a bidding war to land Newton’s services. It came down to Newton swallowing a pennies on the dollar contract, because he had virtually no other option.

Again, Newton sat out on the free agent market until late June. AJ McCarron, Jeff Driskel, Brett Hundley, Tyler Bray, Case Keenum, P.J. Walker, Teddy Bridgewater, Marcus Mariota, Nate Sudfeld, Chase Daniel, Philip Rivers, Tom Brady, Sean Mannion, Chad Henne, Jameis Winston, Taysom Hill, David Fales, Blaine Gabbert, Jordan Ta’amu, Geno Smith, Mike Glennon, Andy Dalton, and Nick Mullens were all signed in free agency before Cam Newton.

Obviously, there is some factors that go into that, by Newton is clearly being doubted and pushed aside by much of NFL.

Bill Belichick seems to have hitched his wagons to Newton, and the former MVP will have a chance to get himself back to stardom.

Cam Newton will soon officially be the heir to Tom Brady.