Cam Newton Isn’t Afforded The Freedom To Fail Like So Many White Quarterbacks Who Came Before Him

“I’m an African-American quar­ter­back that may scare a lot of peo­ple because they haven’t seen noth­ing that they can com­pare me to.” — Cam Newton Cam Newton addressed the racial ele­phant in the room on Wednesday. Good for him. And good for us. We need to name it until it stops. Cam was defend­ing him­self against reac­tions to his cel­e­bra­tions specif­i­cal­ly that cap an NFL career of racial dou­ble-stan­dards. In the next 10 days we will debate about all the hate and bla­tant racism (Warren’s Moon’s words) that Cam has received since he stepped into this league. We will rehash the scout­ing report hit jobs, the hits on Cam’s intel­li­gence, and crit­i­cism of his dabs and dances that are more over-the-top than the beloved Lambeau Leap. And we should. But this con­ver­sa­tion must go beyond Cam. We need to dis­sect, scru­ti­nize, and ana­lyze all the white quar­ter­backs in these play­offs with a Super-Cam lens. Let’s start with a whiter 6′5″ quar­ter­back: Carson Palmer. “Retweet this if you picked off Carson Palmer tonight” went the tweet by @RoFlo.

NEWTON CAN JOIN EXCLUSIVE CLUB IF HE WINS MVP, SUPER BOWL

According to Twitter, Palmer set a new play­off record with 842 inter­cep­tionsagainst the Panthers. Palmer’s unfair social beat­down aside, it seems like eons ago Palmer was get­ting seri­ous MVP con­sid­er­a­tion. Going into the sea­son’s last game, some jour­nal­ists at ESPN and else­where were pick­ing Palmer. A not so quite sci­en­tif­ic ESPN poll of 58,000 fans picked Tom Brady. The diplo­mat­ic Washington Post called it a tie. Can’t we all get along? No. We can’t.

Forget the tech­ni­cal points that 1) No. 2) Cam’s cast of jour­ney­men wide receivers resem­ble Ella Fitzgerald more than Larry Fitzgerald, and 3) the Panthers’ 15 – 1 near-per­fect record is just not per­fect enough. The real MVP debate tragedy is if Cam had Carson’s career, there would be no debate. Cam would have been dri­ven out of the league by 2012 after Palmer post­ed his third straight los­ing sea­son going 12 – 28. Not Cam or any black quar­ter­back can pull off a career come­back like Carson’s… or Alex Smith’s… or Ryan Fitzpatrick’s. No black quar­ter­back in NFL his­to­ry has ever reeked as much as these guys and lived to throw about it. Ever.

For NFL white quar­ter­backs, the “Freedom to Fail” is the whitest trait of all. This post­sea­son may as well be called The White Privilege Playoffs. Cam can be utter­ly amaz­ing, but here is what Cam can’t do:

Cam Can’t Be Carson Palmer

Not off-the-field either. If Cam refused to report to camp after a 4 – 12 sea­son and forced a trade like Carson did with the Bengals, he would be brand­ed a “me-first” diva and pos­si­bly gone from the league. And if one of Cam’s cel­e­bra­tion’s includ­ed Carson’s crotch-taunt­ing moves, then more than one moth­er would be send­ing a “let­ter-to-the-edi­tor” about her now cor­rupt­ed kid. Palmer’s sec­ond chances are par for the course for No. 1 QB picks who are white. Before giv­ing up, Tim Couch received 59 starts before the Browns gave up, and David Carr got a whop­ping 79. Even her­ald­ed No. 2 picks get long looks. Five teams took a chance on Rick Mirer, and all-time bust/​head case Ryan Leaf had four teams sign him before he vol­un­tar­i­ly quit the game.

Cam Can’t Be Alex Smith

Smith, also a for­mer No. 1 pick, has devel­oped into a fine quar­ter­back — far more than a “game man­ag­er.” But he was down­right ter­ri­ble his first five sea­sons (see 51 TD pass­es in 50 starts). Despite near­ly iden­ti­cal sta­tis­tics and a high­er pass­er rat­ing with Smith over his first three years, for­mer No. 1 pick JaMarcus Russell was boot­ed out of the NFL.

After five years Smith’s team record was 19 – 31, almost the oppo­site of Vince Young’s 30 – 17 start­ing record. Young, who has seen his life spi­ral to the depths and was recent­ly arrest­ed in Austin, Texas for a DWI, played in two Pro Bowls, but played only one more sea­son after. Instead of being nur­tured like Smith, Young was benched for the slight­est mis­take by coach Jeff Fisher for Kerry Collins — who went 26 – 50 over his last nine sea­sons. Fisher, who pre­ferred to draft Matt Leinart, remains employed with the Rams despite five straight los­ing sea­sons — unchar­tered waters for African-American coach­es (an arti­cle for anoth­er day).

Whether it be easy jokes about Russell’s “weight” or Young’s “atti­tude,” crit­ics always have “rea­sons” — just nev­er com­par­isons (see ear­ly off-field trou­bles and alco­holism of Collins). The point is, if Cam had per­formed like Smith had the last five years, he would be out of the NFL with no short­age of “rea­sons” from the scouts. It’s all right here from Nolan Nawrocki’s report: “Very disin­gen­u­ous — has a fake smile, comes off as very script­ed and has a self­ish, me-first make­up. Has an enor­mous ego with a sense of enti­tle­ment that con­tin­u­al­ly invites trou­ble and makes him believe he is above the law — does not com­mand respect from team­mates and will always strug­gle to win a lock­er room … Lacks account­abil­i­ty, focus and trust­wor­thi­ness — is not punc­tu­al, seeks short­cuts and sets a bad exam­ple. Immature and has had issues with author­i­ty. Not depend­able.” The book would be closed on Cam like JaMarcus and Vince fol­lowed by: “See — he toooold you about Cam! Now shut up and stop play­ing the race card!”.

And Geno Smith Can’t Be Ryan Fitzpatrick

Okay. Fitzpatrick did­n’t tech­ni­cal­ly make the play­offs, but the Jets were the only win­ning NFL team this year that did­n’t. Their 10 wins, supe­ri­or to two play­off teams, marked the first win­ning sea­son in Ryan’s 10-year career and 33 – 55 record. After an 8 – 8 rook­ie sea­son that saw both flash­es of inex­pe­ri­ence and promise, Smith’s poor sec­ond sea­son has many writ­ing his NFL obit­u­ary. And while I have my own doubts about Smith, it would be nice to see him in an offense with Brandon Marshall — a huge fac­tor in Fitzpatrick’s resur­gence. This off­sea­son Ryan will cash in his “Freedom-to-Fail” for 10 – 12 mil­lion a year. But for­get Smith, even Donovan McNabb’s Hall-of-Fame wor­thy pedi­gree could­n’t get any “Freedom-to-Fail” love. After McNabb request­ed his release from the Vikings in 2011 to sign on with a vet­er­an team, he had no takers.
No Black QB Can Be the Texans’ Brian Hoyer

For NFL QB’s, “undraft­ed” is code for “white.” Hoyer’s abysmal play­off per­for­mance was one for the ages. It requires a coach see­ing your poten­tial that that no one else sees. In Hoyer’s case, he was cut three dif­fer­ent times by the Patriots, Steelers, and Cardinals. Naturally, his for­mer Patriot coach Bill O’Brien gave him a fouth chance to make good, and was reward­ed with four inter­cep­tions and a 15.9 pass­er rat­ing (not a mis­print) in the wild-card round.
Read more here: Cam Newton isn’t afford­ed the free­dom to fail like so many white quar­ter­backs who came before him