When Cam Newton goes under center Sunday afternoon, he’ll be the first Black quarterback in Patriots history to start Week 1.
It’s not something Newton takes lightly.
“It’s a big deal. It’s really a big deal," Newton said. "I understand who I am, I understand being an African-American in this time, we have to be stronger and sticking with each other more than ever now, yet this is a great feat to achieve but at the end of the day we have to make sure we’re using our platform for positive reasons, and that’s what I want to do.
"I want to prove to people that there’s more to a person than what you see on the outer level. I’m a person who got second and third and fourth chances in my life and yet through it all, it should always be about what that person’s about, not what that person looks like. As long as I have this opportunity to impact and empower the community whether it’s the Black community, whether it’s the white community, it doesn’t matter what community it may be, I just want to do my part as a good samaritan on Earth.”
Newton is the second Black QB to start for the Patriots — Jacoby Brissett was the first in 2016 — and it’s something that means a lot to his teammates, too.
“I think it’s awesome," Devin McCourty said. "As soon as he signed I started thinking about things like that. I think about things like that all the time when I watch football. Different times where even (Jason McCourty’s) son — he’s four now and he looks at different quarterbacks and sees things or I think of other young Black kids and growing up with the mindset of when you were in Pop Warner and things like that, a lot of kids had to be running backs or receivers. It was never thought of really to be a quarterback, or if he was a quarterback, I feel like you were more told to run.
"To look up and not only Cam here, but look at opening night tonight and (Patrick) Mahomes and DeShaun Watson, it’s special. Obviously with Cam being here, and I didn’t even know that, but to be the second Black quarterback to be out there as a starter and the first for opening week, I think it is an honor.
"It is something that none of us should take lightly because of the history of our country and different things that have happened whether it’s Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell — all those different men who are in front of us. Jim Brown, who set a great example, have really paved the way for you guys to report on something like that, or for me, to be in a game that involves that has really been set in front of us by the men who have traveled this path and really done all of the hard work. I think it is cool for us to reach some of those benefits and still try and push different things forward.”
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