The Patriots clearly wanted to get one piece at quarterback in place before free agency started.

They have a lot of cap space to manipulate and to see what's out there.

But if they're talking to receivers and tight ends, those players going to want to know who's throwing them the football.

And by bringing Cam back.

It was something that the Patriots had in their control.

We've talked about other options on the show, like Jimmy Garoppolo, Marcus Mariota.

But those dominoes there, out of the Patriots control.

Here's Cam, who wanted to be back.

That's in the Patriots control, and they say, Let's take control of this situation.

I get it.

And so now I'm going to ask you to do something that all reporters hate to do.

And that is to guess.

So how would you assess the likelihood that Cam Newton winds up being QB one when the season begins?

Well, greeny, I would say this.

Look at the numbers from last year, and what do they tell us?

The Patriots were 30th in the NFL and passing yards per game, 30th in terms of highest interception percentage, 27th and total yards, and 27th and points scored.

If the Patriots thought that Cam Newton was the main reason for that, would they have brought him back?

I would say no.

So to me, what this tells me is they're going to go out and put better weapons around Cam Newton and see what that looks like.

And they'll also leave themselves a little bit of flexibility should an unexpected opportunity pop up down the road that is out of their control.

But for now, I would say it will be can.

Flexibility is an interesting word, but I'm interested to hear you say that for now.

It does appear it could be Cam.

No one is closer to this stuff than my creases, Mike, thank you very much.

Let me bring the crew back in here.

For those of you just joining us, I have Tim Hasselbeck, Dan Graziano and Bart Scott.

And let's be fair to camp again.

This was a season last year in which there was no training camp.

There were no preseason games.

He got there basically right before camp began.

It was all truncated.

Then.

After the season began, he got the coronavirus and did not seem to be himself when he returned.

There are a lot of reasons we could point to if we want to, Why it didn't go well.

So, Tim, you just heard Mike Reiss say right now he thinks there's a real chance it will be camp.

Do you see it that way?

Um, I think that I guess there's a shot if they don't get the guys that they want, whether it's in the draft or some other, you know, way of acquiring quarterback.

Look, the deal looks like is the numbers, you know, preliminarily come in, you know, one year, $14 million worth up to.

So there's going to be incentive later.

So if you're down around the $10 million range for your starting quarterback, you're at the bottom of the league in terms of that, especially if you're not, if you don't have a rookie quarterback.

So look, uh, quarterback in his rookie contract.

So to me, Look, I guess it's an option.

I can't imagine it's the option that New England would prefer.

So could I see it as look, he starts and they drafted somebody high.

Yeah, potentially.

But to me, they're not a threat.

with Cam Newton has a starting quarterback.

I understand what you're saying about last year.

The truth of matter is, Cam has not had a good season since 2018.

What do you think?

Part?

Well, I think camp can be a quarterback for them.

And you?

Do you think we're not mixing the fact that they brought back Trent Brown?

We know that Isaiah Wynn is a stud as well.

Um, and you know, you think about them trying to run the ball, but can can body hold up.

I mean, when you only sign a quarterback to a one year deal, you treat him like a rental car.

You don't care if he gets hurt.

You don't care if if his cigarettes McDonald's built in the back seat, you know, so if they want to go that route and can go through defense, they have tremendous amount of money to try and build a roster around them.

This is an old roster that they're going to have to try and improve and get young.

They got old and expensive very fast, and now they have a lot of salary cap space where they can kind of get depth at positions and when the way New England used to be, you know, before Tom Brady and they really kind of decided to let him win.

You know, win with defense when we're running the ball.

And if you have to, you know, in Cameroon's career, who cares?

So be it.

You know, you only got up to a one year deal.

You'll get all the trade off the tires.

So Graziano, let me then come to you.

We talk about the other options.

Let's go through those.

What?

What do those seem to be?

What other places might New England go from here to find other quarterbacks?

Well, you heard Mike Reiss reference a few, and I mean, look, there's not a ton left on the market.

There are some potentially interesting options, such as Marcus Mariota, who's been available in trade from the Raiders and could end up being cut and available to be signed.

You know, I mean, Alex Smith was recently cut by Washington.

He's a guy that still wants to play.

Could they find a way to get their old friend Jimmy Garoppolo back from the 49 ers?

That would depend on what the 40 Niners found in terms of other options besides Garoppolo.

So you know this is Belichick and the Patriots operate by by, uh, playing the percentages, right, like it's not going to lock in on one option unless it's Tom Brady.

They're going to give themselves a potential, you know, to to maximize their potential for success.

And so this is one option that they feel good about.

If something else better comes along, I'm sure they're positioned to go that way.

But right now, look, Mike made the point free agency next week.

You want to sign wide receivers?

You wanna sign tight ends, They're gonna say Who is throwing me the ball?

You don't have an answer As of yesterday, As of today, you have one that sounds pretty interesting to some people.

Yes, correct.

As you point you made earlier.

A lot of Cam is popular around the league.

Other players like him there may be other players were, regardless of what we think, as analysts, other players who might be interested in playing with him.

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