Cam Newton: Former Auburn QB still doing amazing things with Carolina Panthers

Cam Newton has a way of making the extraordinary look ordinary and it’s easy to overlook what the former Auburn football player does in the NFL on a weekly basis.

Take Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals, for example.

You glance at his stat line and see this:

Passing: 15 of 24, 150 yards
Rushing: 10 carries, 36 yards

Good, not great, right?

Well, if you know anything about Cam Newton (and if you don’t, what’s wrong with you?) then you know that any game he is on the field, the potential for big things happening is present.

Newton threw a pair of TD passes and ran for two more in Carolina’s 28-21 victory Sunday in Charlotte, N.C. That is the third time in his career that he’s thrown for at least two scores and run for two — that’s second only to Steve Young, who accomplished that feat four times in his career.

Newton has 57 career rushing touchdowns, which of course is most by a quarterback in NFL history (Young held the previous mark with 44) and it’s the second-most since he came into the league in 2011, according to the Panthers.

And this one was impressive Sunday:

After the win Sunday to move Carolina to 2-1 this season, Newton has 4,456 rushing yards in his career. That is the third-most by a quarterback in league history. Randall Cunningham is No. 2 with 4,928 yards and Michael Vick is first with 6,109.

First-year Panthers offensive coordinator Norv Turner isn’t afraid to use Newton in the running game. In fact, he’s using it as much, if not more, as Carolina has in the past.

Through three games, Newton has carried the ball 28 times for 136 yards. That puts him on pace to get close to his season-high rushing mark of 754 yards last season. He’s on pace to carry the ball more than he has in any season and top his rookie season rushing TD mark of 14 scores.

”We are a team that can attack a defense in many different ways,” Newton said after the win Sunday in which RB Christian McCaffrey added 184 rushing yards. “As the game progresses I see the body language of defenders and they are wearing down.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Newton had one of the greatest single seasons in college football history in 2010 at Auburn. He led the Tigers to the BCS title, won the Heisman Trophy, ran for 1,473 yards and 20 touchdowns and passed for 2,854 yards and 30 more scores.

He was fun to watch then and he’s fun to watch now.

The Panthers are off this week, but you can catch Newton next Oct. 7 against the New York Giants.