Panthers vs. Lions: Does Cam Newton or Matt Stafford Have Brighter NFL Future?

Through 10 weeks of this NFL season, few stories have been more compelling than the rise of Cam Newton.

He runs, he passes, he has an unusually firm grasp of the playbook and he's the type of quarterback a team can base its offense around.

The only thing he doesn't do is win.

Of course, saying Cam Newton isn't winning because he's a bad quarterback is as flawed an argument as saying Barry Sanders didn't win a Super Bowl because he's a bad running back. Newton isn't the Barry Sanders of quarterbacks, mind you, but the comparison holds true.

Football is such an intricate team game that very rarely can an outstanding individual performance outweigh a poor team performance. Newton has put on a show or two this season, but he simply doesn't have enough pieces in place around him to win consistently.

Sounds a lot like the 2009 edition of Matthew Stafford, actually. The difference being that Newton is on track to finish his rookie season, and Stafford has had injury problems to varying degrees throughout his professional career.

But that aside, Stafford and Newton share a lot of similarities, play styles notwithstanding. Both were No. 1 overall picks, both entered the league playing under rookie head coaches, and both are expected to feature as the centerpiece of the offense (as top quarterbacks should).

This season, both quarterbacks started at an absurdly torrid pace statistically, and both appear to have hit the wall this season, as both are coming off arguably their worst games as professionals.

The difference here is that Newton can pass off his struggles as hitting the "rookie wall," where Stafford is a third-year quarterback (even if his game experience doesn't tab him as such). Sure, Stafford has issues like playing through injury, wind and an increasingly porous offensive line.

But it isn't as though Newton doesn't have some of those same issues, and the fact that he hasn't had the same injury problems as Stafford is, if anything, a tick in Newton's favor.

That said, here's where my bias is going to come through. And no, not my bias as a Detroit Lions analyst. I'm talking about my bias against running quarterbacks. That bias is why I never bought into Mike Vick as a quarterback, or Vince Young, or Tim Tebow or others of that ilk. And it hasn't failed me yet.

Now, it's important that I draw the distinction here between a running quarterback and a scrambling quarterback.

Scrambling quarterbacks can still read a defense and make throws to their third or fourth read, or run for a first down if the situation calls for it. Use Ben Roethlisberger or Aaron Rodgers as examples here. Both can move in the pocket, roll out and scramble for yardage when they need to, but you won't see either of them rush for 100 yards in a game.

Running quarterbacks are typically incredibly gifted athletically, and they love calling their own numbers and filling up the stat sheet. Against a sub-par defense, they can run for as many yards as they pass for (usually around 200 of each).

And they never, ever win Super Bowls.

In theory, running quarterbacks should be some of the most effective. The defense constantly has to account for the quarterback as a threat to run, which generally means appointing a guy to play contain. In other words, there's always one guy who can neither rush the passer nor drop into coverage.

Running quarterbacks can, in a way, play against 10-man defenses.

And yet they often have a difficult time reading coverages, while pocket and scrambling quarterbacks can make it look like they're playing 12-on-8.

My theory on this is that running quarterbacks never really learn the fundamentals of being a quarterback (pocket awareness, four- and five-receiver reads, blitz/coverage recognition), because they have a natural defense mechanism. If they don't understand what they're seeing from the defense, they'll just break contain and run for it.

And usually, it's an effective play, especially in college. To an extent, it remains effective in the NFL, especially if the guy is athletic enough to break big plays. But where a pocket quarterback has no choice but to become a student of the game and study defenses, running quarterbacks can literally run away from the problem.

This brings me back to Cam Newton. One of the things that has impressed me early is his willingness to hang in the pocket and deliver the football. His accuracy and awareness are greater than I expected they would be at this point, although he still has much to learn (especially now that opponents have some game film to study and are starting to understand how to confuse him).

Ultimately, Newton's future success in the league will ride on whether he becomes an effective passer who can use his legs (Rodgers/Roethlisberger) or a stat-happy rusher who uses his arm as a complimentary tool (Vick/Young/Tebow).

Until Newton proves he's the former, I give the edge to Stafford, the pure pocket-passer, in terms of long-term potential for success.

That said, if Newton commits himself to the game and becomes an effective passer with the threat to run as an added element, he could surpass Stafford in terms of potential, even though he lacks the same arm strength.

Otherwise, he'll just be another Vick: lots of stats with nothing to show for it.