For roughly half the season, we were watching the stat accumulator version of Cam Newton. However, even in that span, he had weak games (against JAX and TEN for example). He also had multiple games where he played one good half and sucked the other half. This version of Newton was making too many mistakes and causing Carolina to lose.
It could be said that Carolina was treating him like a "veteran QB" that could handle all that responsibility. Right off the bat, they wanted to show Newton as "mentally capable" of handling a full plate. That strategy failed, and it took the Panthers' organization a while to realize it.
In recent weeks, Carolina has essentially turned Newton into Andy Dalton. Or, in other words, both teams are now treating their QBs like ROOKIES. They probably looked at the fact that Cinci was winning and Carolina wasn't, and they decided to construct a gameplan to "limit Newton's mistakes." It couldn't be lost on people that Dalton tends to not put up huge numbers, but they will finish the season above .500. Cinci has Benson; Carolina has DeAngelo Williams and Jon Stewart. Cinci has Gresham; Carolina has Shockey and Olsen. As has been noted on CF previously, Steve Smith has played very hard this year. Looking at the above, I would say that Carolina is more equipped than Cinci to play as a team. And, with Tampa's COMPLETE COLLAPSE, I would also say that Cinci's division - the AFC North - is tougher than the NFC South.
At TCU, Dalton had some of the shorter, quicker receivers and did well with them.. so it's very possible that he could be more productive with Steve Smith rather than A.J. Green. Steve Smith is also more physical. So, yes, Carolina is playing more as a team now and they had the talent to do that all along, but how much of them "looking better" has to do with their dominating sweep of Tampa Bay? --One of those wins was over Josh Johnson.-- That's 2 wins right there, and puts them 2 games above Tampa in their division. Tampa was given a much tougher schedule this year, but their collapse is shown in losses to JAX and TEN and getting destroyed by Carolina this week. Tampa's collapse has served to "elevate" Carolina as the sexy pick for next year in the NFC South. In the Draft, Carolina will likely focus on WRs, DL and secondary. Maybe a few OL as well (Gross and Wharton not getting younger and Otah's issues). Nearly every pick will be celebrated..
Of course, Atlanta and New Orleans need to improve if they are to stay on top. Atlanta needs to replace Michael Turner, get a successor to Gonzalez, build a better d-line and secondary. Every area of the New Orleans "D" could use improvement. Coby Fleener, who somehow wasn't a Mackey finalist, might be a steal for somebody in the 2nd round or later. What if more teams try to "copy" New England's Gronk/Hernandez tandem? Tyler Eifert could possibly be in this Draft as well. Coby Fleener could end up on a GOOD offensive team that wants to create matchup problems. I sure hope so!