Patriots quarterback Cam Newton turned in his second straight poor performance in Sunday’s 33-6 loss to the 49ers and found himself on the bench in the fourth quarter after throwing his third interception of the day.
After the game, head coach Bill Belichick said Newton will remain the starter but that probably won’t continue to be the case if Newton continues to struggle in losing efforts. Newton said in his postgame press conference that he feels fine physically and that the “mental” game has been causing him to turn in disappointing efforts.
“Well, I’ve just been pressing,” Newton said. “I don’t think it’s anything with mechanics. It’s seeing the situation at hand and I caught myself just pressing too much. The energy is definitely been off for me and at times it’s not rewarding when you’re just going out there with this aura about yourself that’s not you. I love playing this football game. I have fun playing this football game, but the performances here hasn’t been somewhat delightful for me to have fun in doing so. So I just got to be better. And a lot of things starts and stops at that position and I understand that. And I have put this team in a rut with the performances here, and yet just start over with Monday and see where it goes.”
Newton said he believes “without a doubt” that he’s capable of being the player that the Patriots need him to be and next week’s game against the Bills would be a good time to start proving that’s the case.