Who’s the best available free agent quarterback: Cam Newton or Jameis Winston?

We lay our scene, two quarterbacks, both former number one overall picks, both in NFL free agency. It could be the start of a Shakespearean play, but for Cam Newton and Jameis Winston, their current position is more akin to a Greek tragedy. With several big-name quarterbacks re-signing or putting pen to paper with new teams, they are the most high-profile of the available free agent quarterbacks in 2020.

The quarterback carousel in 2020 has been as wild as any in recent memory. The Los Angeles Chargers releasing Philip Rivers set the ball rolling, and he is tasked with filling the void left by Andrew Luck’s departure from the Indianapolis Colts a year ago. Nick Foles was traded from the Jacksonville Jaguars to the Chicago Bears to light a fire under, or more likely replace, Mitchell Trubisky.

Two moves have altered the destiny of the key players in our story. Teddy Bridgewater signed a three-year, $63 million deal with the Carolina Panthers, effectively ending Newton’s time in Charlotte. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ pursuit, and capture, of Tom Brady made it clear that Winston’s time in Tampa was up.

The latter move created an opportunity under center with the New England Patriots. That aside, there are limited opportunities for any of the available free agent quarterbacks, especially for those as high-profile as Newton and Winston.

Could the Patriots essentially swap Brady for Winston? Is Newton a better option in New England?

The case for Cam Newton

When you consider what Newton has achieved in his nine years in the NFL since being taken by the Panthers with the first overall pick of the 2011 NFL Draft, there seems very little conversation to be had.

He was the 2011 AP Offensive Rookie of the Year after throwing for over 4000 yards in his first year in Carolina. In 2015, he was the NFL MVP and AP Offensive Player of the Year as he helped guide the Panthers to Super Bowl 50. Throw in an All-Pro honor and three trips to the Pro-Bowl, and it completes a picture of what he’s contributed to Carolina.

On the stats sheet, he’s been impressive too. In 2015 he led the league in touchdown percentage, with 7.1% of his throws resulting in a touchdown. Newton also engineered four game-winning drives in 2015, also a league-high. In 2012, he led the NFL in yards per completion, with an average of 13.8 yards per catch.

With 29,041 passing yards, 182 passing touchdowns, and 17 game-winning drives, Newton has led the Panthers to a 68-55-1 record over his 125 starts, a 54% winning percentage.

Compared to Winston’s 39% winning percentage, the evidence seems conclusive that Newton would be the better option of the two available free-agent quarterbacks.

However, a deeper dive into the numbers, including PFN’s Offensive Share Metric, paints a slightly different picture.

Winston is a better option at quarterback than Newton

Many of the statistics that help us understand quarterback play are in Winston’s favor when comparing him to Newton. His career completion percentage of 61.3% is better than Newton’s 59.6%. He throws for more yards per attempt than Newton, 7.7 YPA versus 7.3 YPA over their respective careers. Newton has thrown an average of 232.3 yards per game in his nine seasons in Charlotte, while Winston averages 274.1 yards per game. Winston averages 1.68 touchdowns per game versus Newton’s 1.46.

Winston was much maligned in 2019 due to the large number of interceptions he threw. There were many jokes about him appearing on the 30 for 30 documentary series as his 30 interceptions largely negated his 33 touchdowns.

While Winston has to take the blame for some of these interceptions, with 20.6% of his throws in 2019 designated as “bad throws”, not all of those were within his control. As OSM only accounts for the factors a player can control, interceptions aren’t taken into consideration, and it gives us a true understanding of how a player contributes to the offense.

Since 2016, Winston has graded higher than Newton every year.

In 2016, they were quite close, with Winston being our QB11 with a grade of 31.35 and Newton, our QB13, with a grade of 31.28. Since then, they have gone in very different directions.

Newton received a grade of 21.53 (QB26) in 2017 and 23.94 (QB16) in 2018, whereas Winston had a grade of 31.11 (QB3) and 32.00 (QB2) in the respective years.

Over those years, Winston has consistently had a completion percentage above expectation, as per NFL Next Gen Stats. Newton’s completion percentage was below expectations in both 2016 and 2017.

Winston also consistently makes plays beyond the sticks, meaning he is driving the offense. Newton, in 2017 and 2018, was making plays behind the sticks, relying on the players around him to keep the offense moving. This is also supported by the fact that in 2018, the Panthers had more yards after the catch (1743) than they did at the point of the catch (1652).

Due to his injury in 2019, Newton didn’t receive on overall OSM grade, but in his first two games of the season, he received grades of 19.57 and 24.52. Winston’s overall grade for the year was 29.96, making him our QB4 on the season.

The message is clear. If you can iron out the interceptions from Winston’s game, he clearly represents a better option than Newton going forward.

Only one of the available free agent quarterbacks at the start of the NFL league year had a higher OSM grade than Winston in 2019. Ryan Tannehill signed a reported $118 million contract with the Tennessee Titans after starting 2019 as their backup following a switch from the Miami Dolphins.

Perhaps Winston’s story could have a similar happy ending this time next year.