I thought you said you weren't coming back.
You have some good points and there is no doubt that Cam's season hasn't been as good as last season (although last season you said these very stats were irrelevant and only YPP mattered, but I digress)
But there are several factors that have gone into this regression. Some of it is Cam's fault, some of it is coaching, some of it the surrounding cast, and some of it has nothing to do with just bad luck.
But as I have pointed out several times it is part of the maturation process of every QB that has ever played the game. They all have had to go through this. Every QB not named Tom Brady has had years in which they regressed early in their careers.
Many of the very best QB like both Mannings, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, had seasons just as bad or worse than Cam has had this year.
Heck in 2007 alone Eli Manning had three games worse than any game that Cam has ever had in his short career. That was in Eli's fourth season as an NFL QB.
This year my main point hasn't been to defend Cam's production like I did last year (which I was right about and every stat you can come up with backs me up, including YPP), it is to make the point that this year is not unusual for a young QB and that he still has the potential to be a special QB as he develops and matures. It isn't a matter of if but when for Cam Newton.
And 4th quarter comebacks is a faulty stat because there have been several instances this year that we have taken or retaken the lead in the 4th and our defense has faltered down the stretch, If the defense holds the lead they would be considered 4th quarter comebacks and Cam could have had a couple this year.
Why do you keep comparing Cam to all of these elite quarterbacks, HOF candidates, or Superbowl Champions who have prior bad years? There's been far more quarterbacks who have been busts or turned out average that have equally crap years. The odds are against him turning out like Manning or Brees.
And how exactly were you "right" about his production when no one argued with it? Other than perhaps to point out Steve Smith had a lot more to do it than you gave him credit. I never argued against his production, I gave Cam all the credit he deserved for his part. I said his production came at the
cost of inefficiency. And yards per point backs that up? It doesn't. Not interested in getting into a statistical debate with you but as I remember, you tried your hardest time to say it's not an efficiency stat, or not an offensive stat, or anything else to try to make it go away. He was inefficient. Our offense was inefficient. And as soon as our defense has improved this year, it simply exposed everything I was trying to explain to you. Don't even need stats to see that now.
This year you can't defend his production because it's simply not the same. Remember when you were assuming that if his workload would lower, his efficiency would increase? Nope. They both dropped simultaneously. He's amassed a 79 passer rating so far. Look around the NFL, the only quarterback with 2000+ passing yards and single digit passing touchdowns is Ryan Tannenhill. It's the
same problem, but now at a lower production rate.
Finally,
all stats are "faulty". You love to point to how "faulty" or find exceptions to well known and reliable stats are that don't agree with you. All quarterbacks have to deal with that situation you described. We're still talking about
1 in 26 games. How many of those elite QB's you point to have only put 1 game away in their first 2 years of their career? As a matter of fact that's exactly what happened against the Jaguars. Our defense held the lead, and batted down a pass, which allowed him to get 1. So that benefited him. But he had plenty of opportunities to put games away himself on the offensive side and has not. You keep forgetting the other quarterback on the
other team who are getting these 4th quarter comebacks
against us, are not depending on their defense. Yes our defense gave up a lead last week, but you are ignoring the fact Josh Freeman
drove his team down the field and got a 4th quarter comeback
against us, then followed it up with a game winning drive in over time.
All of a sudden you think that's not an important category, but no long time Panther fan would forget 4th quarter comebacks is what kept Jake Delhomme's job for 7 years in Carolina. Other than his leadership, that's all he was ever good at.