Ron Rivera reacts to Cam Newton’s claim a Panthers teammate charged him $1M | All Facts No Brakes

Ron Rivera on drafting QBs based on winning history Coach Rivera, Colin Cowherd recently said that drafting a quarterback based on them having a great winning history can be risky business. Take a listen. Years and years-- this is a long time ago-- Mike Ditka was, I think, the coach of New Orleans at the time. And I remember he drafted Danny Wuerffel. And one of the things he said, well, he's a winner. [LAUGHS] You know, Steve Spurrier, they were winning a lot of SEC games. And I had talked to a general manager at the time-- Rich McKay, in Tampa, was the GM of the Bucs. And I remember him telling me, he's not an NFL quarterback, but we don't want to say anything negative. We're in Tampa. Gainesville is just up the road 90 minutes. So I don't like the term "he's a winner," because most of these high school quarterbacks, by the way, that are really, really good-- like, 4- and 5-star guys, they're playing at stacked high school programs. They all come out winners out of high school. In Southern California, St. Bosco, Mater Dei-- if you start for two or three years, those guys are all, like, 30 and 3. They're all winners. What does that mean? It means you're talented enough to be a quarterback at a great high school program. I don't want to hear "you're a winner." Well, Coach, how much stock do you Ron Rivera on Cam Newton put into drafting a quarterback with the great winning history over a player who has a ton of talent, but didn't play with a bunch of 5 stars? Because I could think of, like, you know, Cam Newton, who played at Auburn, and I can't think of someone that was on the Auburn team-- and he seems to be pretty successful. No-- and you're absolutely right, Kiki, because, again, when we drafted Cam, one of the things that we talked about was Cam was a winner. We looked at what he did. In high school, he won. Then he went around and he went to Blaine College-- Blinn. Blinn-- excuse me-- Blinn College, and he wins a national championship there. Then goes to Auburn and wins a national championship. I mean, you know-- and that's the term we used was he was a winner. I mean, it doesn't hold true for everybody. Yeah, that's true. But for somebody like Cam, it held true because of exactly what you said, Kiki. How many guys can you name off of that Auburn team that won the national championship? So that's one of the things that people got to sit there and understand. He did what he did and he didn't have elite-elite talent around him. He had good talent, but not elite. And this is a guy that won and continued to win and did some really nice things. The thing, again, that got to him was the injury to the shoulder-- to the throwing arm. And it changes quarterbacks-- it does-- especially when it's the throwing shoulder. Yeah, Cam-- most guys that are top picks, though, like at quarterback or whatever, they got a track record, a history of success, whether it's through high school, through junior college-- when he was recruited, he was the top guy-- he was recruited again as a top guy. And then he became the number one overall pick-- not by mistake. That is true. Guys do that. For me, if I'm looking at a quarterback-- if I'm drafting-- one of my main criterias is I don't want a young guy. Don't give me a guy that's only taken a few snaps. I want some guy that's been in school four years, that started at least two of the four years, because he understands what the pressure of playing that position is all about. You see quarterbacks come out now-- all the guys that come out now as juniors or red shirt sophomores, they don't go on to have success. Give me a Joe Burrow. Give me a guy that's been in school five years, that's graduated, those are the ones that have success. Yes. Give me some long tooths. I want some guys that have been around and they understand and they know what it's all about. Young dudes, no, I don't want a young quarterback. I got a kid or two. No, I don't want-- yeah, I need a guy that got a kid or two, absolutely. Absolutely. And again, to Colin's point, and Kiki's question, is, when you have a guy that doesn't have all the other intangibles, that's the kind of guy you got to be careful about when you talk about, oh, he's a winner. Yeah. He didn't have all the other intangibles. Well, hell, look at Alabama quarterbacks. All of them win. - Yes. Yeah. And they have players around them, but-- But they also have the intangibles. They have the intangibles. Yeah. That's what gets people's attention. So that's the thing you got to be careful of, is, guys that don't have the intangibles, that's where you've got to be careful when people label, well, he's a winner. He's a winner. Well, Cam said that Jimmy Clausen tried to charge him Ron Rivera on Jimmy Clauson $1 million to get his number 2 jersey, so he went with number 1. What were your thoughts when you heard that? [LAUGHS] That, to me, Kiki, was real interesting because it tells you a little bit about who Cam is, is that, you know what, the number didn't make who Cam is. It really didn't. Yeah. So him changing his mind and going to number 1 really showed that, hey, it's not about the number. It's about the player. And that's really the thing I think a lot of guys got to understand, is that it's about you as a player. The number doesn't identify who you are. You make the number that number. No, you do. You just feel good about the number or whatnot. It's so funny because I never was faced with, when I went to other teams, of someone having my number. And if somebody had my number if I had gone to a team, most likely that dude was going to get cut anyway. So I'll wait him out. I'm not spending a million. I'm going to wait him out! That's understandable. - I'm going to wait. - It is. I'm going to wait him out. He going to get cut anyway. If I'm going, and a guy has 19, most likely he's probably going to get cut. Yeah. No, 19 is a different number. It's usually a quarterback number-- but most quarterback numbers are now, you know, from 1 to 9. Most guys are single digits. I see your point. I can appreciate that. No, you're right. I've seen a lot of players pay money for their numbers. I'm like, just wait the dude out, man. Just wait him out. He's wearing your number for now, but they just signed you to a bunch of money. He knows it. Get him-- tell him-- Yeah, I feel like people do that often. They do. They do it a lot. If you think about it, what are the numbers that nobody wants to pay for-- 14s? 50s. 50s. Yeah. But if you think about 14, 15-- Yeah, they're probably not going to pay for that. 16-- No, probably not going to pay for that. 18 and 19. 19 ain't-- It's becoming-- 19 is becoming-- - Now it's different. - It's becoming. You're right. No, it's becoming now-- 19 is different now. It's becoming. It's becoming. Yeah, if somebody-- you know, Johnny Unitas would have had to be on my team for me to just bypass-- [LAUGHTER] There you go. Anybody else, they going to have to give it to me.