Panthers beat Patriots on MNF

          It was tough. It was physical. It was a battle.
          It was everything it had been hyped up to be.
          And in the end, Cam Newton outplayed Tom Brady when it mattered most. A year ago most people would have laughed at anyone who wrote that. No one outplays Tom Brady in the clutch. Definitely not Cam Newton. He's immature, he pouts, he whines. He will never outplay the legend, the golden boy, Tom Brady.
          Then he did.
          But there was a flag. And if you've watched any NFL game in the past, you're well versed on the way this thing works. Penalty flags are as imprecise as the men in stripes who throw them. Depending on who you ask, it was the right call and the wrong call and the last call for alcohol. My opinion? Not touching it. I just think that perhaps the football gods are showing the Panthers some love after years of watching Jake Delhomme's old ass drive the team into the ground and Jimmy Clausen's goofy ass keep it there.
          The storyline of the night was unfortunately written in the final three seconds of the game. The headlines in the papers tomorrow will focus entirely too much on one play, when the real story was written by Cam Newton on the Panther's final drive of the game, and punctuated with Ted Ginn's touchdown catch.
          You could almost feel it. We've all seen it before. Cam Newton does just enough to lose by a touchdown. And when Tom Brady took over with three timeouts and about a minute left, it was already being written again. But when that final pass was intercepted in the endzone, and Tom Brady didn't win, everything felt right. Cam Newton won a big game against a big team on a big stage, for the second week in a row no less. San Francisco was a big win, but we all know that beating the 49ers with another young quarterback pales in comparison to taking down Tom Brady. Tom Brady beats Peyton Manning on a regular basis, and I'll go on record saying that Manning is the greatest of all time, but even Brady manages to outduel him.
          Tonight was the biggest win in Cam Newton's career, and I'll venture to say the biggest Panther's victory since they beat Donovan McNabb and the Eagles to get to the Super Bowl in 2003. It was a regular season game, I get it. But for a team that has mired in mediocrity for oh so long, this means a lot. More than can really be quantified in words I think.
          The Monday Night Football stage lights shined bright tonight. But when time ran thin, the star that Cam Newton has become shined brighter than them all.

Cam Newton

          I don't think I'm alone when I say I was very wary about Cam Newton's potential as an NFL quarterback. His stats in college were phenominal, he led two straight teams to national championships (his junior college the year prior to his undefeated year at Auburn), he won the Heisman trophy and he just didn't lose games.
          But there were his "character issues" that many were worried about. The incident at Florida where he was accused of stealing a laptop and the alleged "pay for play" scandal at Auburn are the two major issues that I recollect. Draft experts worried about his ability to adapt to a pro offense. He seemingly broke down when Jon Gruden analyzed him with all of the other top QB prospects and he couldn't call a typical NFL play. He was criticized for not being accurate enough, for running too much, and for just about anything else you could think of. To be honest, that level of criticism is well deserved if an organization is considering selecting you as the leader of their team and investing a very pretty penny in you. Jerry Richardson even famously asked Cam Newton if he had any tattoos. Cam's response was no, and Richardson told him he better keep it that way.
          Through it all, the Panthers did indeed select Cam Newton with the number one overall selection in the draft, and by doing so effectively put the entire organization on his shoulders and prayed that he could remove us from the basement of the NFL. With only four games left in the season, the Panthers sit third in the NFC South with a 4-8 record.
          But lets look back at the season so far. A seven point loss to the currently undefeated reigning Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers, a five point loss to the 7-5 Chicago Bears, a three point loss to the 9-3 New Orleans Saints, and a late meltdown in a shootout loss to the 7-5 Detroit Lions. If luck happened to swing our way in a couple of those games our record wouldn't look so bad. And I'll be the first one to say I'd rather watch this Panthers team lose a game the way they play, than the abysmal team that sported Jimmy Clausen at quarterback.
          Cam Newton threw for over 400 yards in his first two starts. He currently sits at 7th in the NFL with 3,297 passing yards. He's thrown 13 TDs, and he LEADS THE ENTIRE NFL with 13 rushing TDs. He broke the record for rushing TDs for a QB in a season on Sunday with four games still to play. AND he has Steve Smith looking like the incredible offensive weapon that he once was.
          Yes, he has made a lot of mistakes. 14 interceptions is not great (he threw all 14 of those interceptions in losses this year), and he tends to be high on a lot of his throws. But guess what, Peyton Manning (yes the great Peyton Manning) threw a whopping 28 interceptions in his rookie year. Rookies make mistakes, Cam is no different. He will learn with experience just like anyone else.
          Don't get me wrong, he's got a lot of room to grow. But his ceiling is very very high, and I am just warning the NFC South, and the rest of the NFL, that the Panthers are a team to watch out for in 2012. As far as Cam Newton is concerned, I'm definitely a believer, and I can't wait to see him reach his full potential.