page_title: Cam Newton
section_title: 2016 season
hierarchical_section_title: Cam Newton / Professional career / Carolina Panthers / 2016 season
caption_attribution_description: English: Cam Newton, a player on the National Football League.
context_page_description: Cameron Jerrell Newton is an American football quarterback for the New England Patriots of the National Football League. After starting his college football career as a backup to Tim Tebow at Florida, Newton transferred to Blinn College. He then joined Auburn, where he won the Bowl Champion Series National Championship and Heisman Trophy in 2010. Newton was then drafted as the first overall pick by the Carolina Panthers in the 2011 NFL Draft.
  In his rookie year, Newton broke all-time NFL rookie records for passing and rushing yards by a quarterback and the all-time rushing touchdowns by a quarterback record. He became the first NFL quarterback to throw for 400 yards in his first game, shattering Peyton Manning's record for a rookie debut by 120 yards and Otto Graham's 61-year-old record for an NFL debut. Newton went on to become the first rookie quarterback to throw for 4,000 yards in a season.
  Newton capped off the 2015 season by capturing the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and leading the Panthers to a 15–1 record and a trip to Super Bowl 50. Newton was then the second African-American quarterback to win the NFL MVP award, after Steve McNair.
context_section_description: In the opening game of the 2016 season, in a Super Bowl 50 rematch against the Denver Broncos, Newton surpassed two of Steve Young's NFL records, one for the most career rushing touchdowns by a quarterback, with his 44th, and the other for most games with a passing and rushing touchdown, with his 32nd. This also tied Otto Graham's all-time professional American football mark of 44 rushing touchdowns by a quarterback. He passed for 194 yards, one passing touchdown, and one interception to go along with 11 carries for 54 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown in the 21–20 loss. In the next game, a 46–27 victory over the San Francisco 49ers, he had 353 passing yards, four passing touchdowns, and one interception. On October 2, in a 48–33 loss at the Atlanta Falcons in Week 4, Newton suffered a concussion on a two-point conversion run and missed the rest of the game. Newton missed the next game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On December 4, against the Seattle Seahawks, Newton was benched for the first offensive series for a dress code violation. It was Newton's first professional game, other than his first career preseason game in 2011, in which he began the game as the backup.
  For the 2016 season, Newton completed 52.9 percent of his passes, marking a career worst in that category. He threw 19 touchdown passes, 16 less than the previous year, and 14 interceptions, the second most of his career behind his rookie season. The Panthers regressed from their 15–1 record from the previous year to a 6–10 record in 2016. Despite a down 2016 season, Newton was still ranked 44th by his peers on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2017.
caption: Newton in 2016 in Denver
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "6000", "Image ImageLength": "4000", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS Rebel T6i", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Elements Organizer 14.0", "Image DateTime": "2016:09:11 07:43:31", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "298", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "964", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1076", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6011", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2500", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "2500", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:09:08 20:05:33", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:09:08 20:05:33", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "67/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "250", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "21", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "21", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1218", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "832", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "6000000/893", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2000000/297", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF CameraOwnerName": "", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "042032001193", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[55, 250, 0, 0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF-S55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "0000319378"}