Imagine if Russell Wilson said what Cam Newton just said

More proof that Russell Wilson should have won MVP over Cam Newton

Cam Newton wouldn’t trade his 2015 MVP for a Super Bowl win. Can you imagine if Wilson said that he would trade his Super Bowl win for an MVP?

This is part of the reason why Wilson is still chugging (ever so gently) at 37, while Newton stopped being relevant at 29.

In 2015, Wilson had the best individual season of his career, but Newton took 48 of 50 possible MVP votes and the remaining two went to Tom Brady and Carson Palmer. I’ve never believed that Newton should have won MVP (my vote would have been for Palmer) because the attention he was getting that year had more to do with the Panthers 15-1 record than his own contributions.

Which is fine. Players win awards for all types of questionable reasons, it’s just that the media’s simplistic view of Newton’s “Him against the world” season was only based on Carolina not having any star wide receivers…

But Greg Olsen was a Pro Bowler. Jonathan Stewart was a Pro Bowler. Every Panthers offensive lineman that year had a great NFL career. The defense had five Pro Bowl starters, including three first-team All-Pros and special teams did their part too. The 2015 Carolina Panthers were a great all-around team that faced the NFL’s 32nd-ranked schedule and dominated the regular season en route to…

If anything, Newton “deserved” to win MVP in 2015 because he was a representative for the 15-1 Panthers, not because he was the 2015 Panthers.

Well, it seems that one person who doesn’t believe that to be the case is Cam Newton.

On ESPN’s First Take, Newton said that he would NOT trade his MVP award for a Super Bowl championship because “Everybody’s not going to be Patrick Mahomes”. Here’s the clip, but if you don’t want to give ESPN a click, I’ve transcribed his entire quote below.

Can you imagine if Russell Wilson said this:

“I would love to trade my Super Bowl championship for an MVP.”

Of course he would never say that — and I know that Wilson’s reputation with Seahawks fans isn’t the same as it was in the prime of his career — because it would be a crazy thing to say on a show, even if the player had to lie and say what we expected, which is that team success is more important than individual awards.

Before we go any further though, let’s review Cam’s full statement because if you think it’s not as bad as it sounds…it’s actually worse.

Stephen A. Smith to Cam Newton: If you could give back that league MVP for a Super Bowl championship, would you do it?

“No. Because I- you have to ask it through this lens. That was a very journalistic viewpoint, vantage point or response, Stephen A.. I ask you this question, and you know, just to pose this thought: What’s more important, impact or championships? You look at a guy like Allen Iverson, everybody’s not going to be Michael Jordan. Everybody’s not going to be Patrick Mahomes. Everybody’s not going to be these individuals who have the luxury of saying, ‘Hey, I not only dominated this sport, but I also have championships to back it.’

Like, let me remind you, Brad Johnson won a Super Bowl. Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl. Uhh, respectfully, Nick Foles won a Super Bowl. So yes, when you look at those guys and say, “Well, what’s more important? Would you have preferred to win a Super Bowl?” I think that’s the humble approach, but if we’re being honest the impact of you holding yourself accountable to say: Everybody has a responsibility to do. And you can say as a MVP award winner, or a All-American, you’ve held yourself, or you’ve held your end of the bargain down. And that’s what it really comes down to for me.

I know that’s not the popular pick, I’m not trying to be popularized. But my take is I’m taking individual success because I did my job. Football is not about one guy trying to do 11 jobs, it’s 11 guys doing one job and if everybody does their job best — famous words of our coach Belichick: Just do your job.”

Some people will argue that Newton is making this argument because it is salacious and it will get views. I completely disagree. ESPN’s ratings will not change by one person just because Cam Newton said he prefers individual success over team success. And if you read Newton’s statement word for word as I have transcribed it — and I did us a service by truly going verbatim — it’s clear to me that he’s saying it because he believes it.

I appreciate his honesty here because I know that Newton is not the only NFL player who thinks this way. Not even close to the only one. If anything, this point of view has probably become more common in recent years and could be the reason why players like Mahomes are able to get to the Super Bowl every year.

Mahomes had more individual success in his first five seasons as Kansas City’s starter, but is on the cusp of winning Super Bowls in each of the past two years when his individual statistics have been really “pedestrian”.

53 touchdowns and 25 interceptions in the last two seasons isn’t significantly better than Geno Smith (Smith has 24 INTs in the last two years) but Mahomes has been the best quarterback in the league in terms of strategizing for one more point than his opponents…not one more touchdown.

What I think is most telling about Cam Newton’s statement though is this:

Stephen A. Smith asked him, “Would you trade your MVP for a Super Bowl win?” and Newton turned it into musing that there’s only one Jordan.

Buddy, it’s a simple question. You can be “Cam Newton, Super Bowl winner” without an MVP or “MVP Cam Newton” without a Super Bowl win. All you gotta say is “Yes”. You can be the same person, the same stats, the same career, but instead of people bringing up the fact that you made a business decision at the end of losing the Super Bowl to the worst* quarterback to ever win a championship, you will have won the only thing that players should actually covet:

A Super Bowl championship.

*Peyton Manning is obviously not the worst quarterback by career, but he was totally incapacitated as a player in 2015. He had been benched for Brock Osweiler and his season totals were 9 TD/17 INT…Manning also knows how blessed he was to be given a Super Bowl roster when he wasn’t even worthy of being an NFL starter anymore.

Newton even makes a case — accidentally — that a quarterback’s legacy will always be more tied to Super Bowl wins than MVPs when he mentions that Brad Johnson, Trent Dilfer, and Nick Foles all won a title. Almost every fan knows that those players are Super Bowl champions, which is 95% of the reason most fans remember those names at all.

Now tell me this:

• How many times did Drew Brees win MVP?

• What year did Adrian Peterson win MVP?

• Who was the last non-QB, non-RB to win MVP?

• Who won the MVP in 2014?

• Who won the MVP in 2022?

Practically all I do is follow the NFL (and Survivor) and I could not have answered any of those questions* if I wasn’t the one who wrote them.

I could, however, name at least the last 40 years of Super Bowl matchups and maybe every winner dating back to the original just because that’s what stands the test of time. Not inflated stats against the Saints defense.

Russell Wilson may not be the perfect guy, but the Seahawks won a Super Bowl because MVPs — at least at that time — were not important to him. Fittingly, many fans argue the Seahawks also lost a Super Bowl because Pete Carroll was emphasizing individual quarterback success over a team victory.

Like it or not, the day will come when the Seahawks honor Wilson at Lumen Field and induct him into the Ring of Honor because of his contributions that led to a Super Bowl championship. If he had Newton’s career…inaccurate passer, high rate of interceptions, 3-4 career playoff record, a losing regular season record in six of his nine years as a starter, and one MVP, I don’t think that would be the case.

*0, 2012, Lawrence Taylor (1986), Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes

I would never trade a history with Russell Wilson for a history Cam Newton.