Jarrett Stidham entering Patriots-Rams might be telling sign about Cam Newton’s future

Jarrett Stidham continues to get snaps and that’s bad for the Patriots.

The New England Patriots’ playoff hopes pretty much died on Thursday night when they were bludgeoned by the Los Angeles Rams in a 21-point loss. The Patriots were out-played, out-coached, out-anything-else-you-can-think-of, and now sit at 6-7.

But what’s worse for New England? It’s clear there’s no answer at quarterback. Cam Newton can’t get the job done as a passer, whether it’s because he’s regressed to the max, isn’t up to speed with the offense, or is really hurting from this abdominal injury.

Whatever the case, it’s really bad news for Bill Belichick and Co. if Jarrett Stidham is getting snaps at the end of games, which has happened four times now in 2020.

And now there are even some pundits/analysts calling for him to get more playing time so the Patriots can “see” what they “have” in him. Why is this bad?

Well, for one, it’s clear Stidham isn’t going to show you anything with this putrid group of position players. You might as well throw Julian Edelman in at quarterback when he’s ready to return. But more importantly, this means one of two things for the Patriots: (1) Newton will be leaving in free agency the day the new league year starts or (2) Newton’s injury at the moment is hampering him so badly that it’s not worth playing him any extra snaps.

Because why wouldn’t you want Newton on the field getting as many reps as humanly possible if he’s still getting up to speed with the offense? That could only mean this injury is truly holding him back or Belichick doesn’t even want to bother because he knows he’s not re-signing the former MVP when the time comes. And let’s say it’s the injury holding him back — then that’s not helping the coaching staff evaluate him properly if they’re interested in keeping him after this season.

It was another dreadful box score for Newton. He went 9-of-17 for 119 yards and a pick and added seven rushes for 16 yards. To be fair, the Rams defense was probably the best he’s faced all year, but this isn’t anything new. He hasn’t been able to pass for quite some time now despite his performances against Seattle and Houston.

Benching him while he still needs to prove a lot more to you is senseless. The Pats have been a fringe playoff team at best this season. There’s really no reason for Newton to ever come out, especially if there’s no faith in Stidham.

Instead, he’s now been taken out in three of the last eight games (whether the Pats were winning or losing) only to give Stidham snaps … which have shown fans absolutely nothing. All this tells us is that the quarterback position is a mess for the Patriots and we can probably expect another new signal caller in 2021.

Cam Newton’s injury update can perhaps explain putrid first half vs Rams

New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton has an abdominal injury and it's being reported that it's perhaps worse than we originally thought.