Florio mentioned on Monday night that the Pro Football Weekly draft preview had a scathing takedown of Cam Newton, which attacked Newton as a person more than as a quarterback.
It’s no surprise that someone close Newton has taken offense.
Newton’s personal quarterback coach George Whitfield fired off a couple shots directed at Nawrocki via Twitter.
“Nawrocki spent 10 min with Cam? Drunks can say that,” Whitfield wrote. “Even the Pope has detractors! Diff is that trying to crush the Pope doesn’t help a sportswriter’s career like crushing Cam. . . . Cam won & succeeded in SEC stadiums that had 95,000 frustrated, nasty, helpless fans like Nawrocki. Sure it’ll get worse!”
On one hand, Nawrocki’s attack seems over the top. On the other hand, we’re sure some scouts share his opinion.
Nawrocki doesn’t really know Newton that well, but who does? NFL teams investing in Newton will spend time with him in interviews, but ultimately they will have to entrust their franchise to him based on a gut feel.
Mike Mayock has said it a few times: At this point, Newton’s football skills are clearly worthy of a top-five selection.
He just needs one team to believe in him as a leader and that seems likely to happen. (Especially since Nawrocki isn’t running a top-five team.)