P ro Football Focus is currently filling the offseason’s final dead period with a series titled “QBs in Focus.” Each entry analyzes the site’s 2013 grades for the league’s quarterbacks. Sunday, it was Cam Newton’s turn.

After sharing three spreadsheets worth of stats, Steve Palazzolo broke down the numbers into ‘positives,’ ‘negatives,’ and ‘tendencies.’ Here are our five biggest takeaways:

1. Newton’s best grades came on passes in the 1-to-10-yard range. His worst were on passes that traveled at least 30 yards. It’s not surprising a quarterback would be more accurate the shorter his pass travels, but what’s interesting is 6.4% of Newton’s passes went for 30 or more yards, the fifth-highest total in the league. Maybe offensive coordinator Mike Shula wasn’t as conservative as many believe. Those numbers claim the Panthers fired a fair number of shots downfield, but they were often blanks. A few may have been on Newton, others on the receivers or offensive line, and some were perhaps bad play calls. As John Fox repeated time and again about the passing game, “There are a lot of moving parts,” and last year’s passing-game issues weren’t the fault of just one man or position.

2. Newton threw a good number of screens to his running backs, but he didn’t use them much if a screen wasn’t called. What would be interesting to clear up is how many times he could have dumped off to a back, versus how often they had to stay in pass protection.

3. Newton graded well when throwing to his tight ends, or essentially, Greg Olsen. Of course, the Panthers will likely run more two-tight end sets in 2014. And for what it’s worth, Newton was much more successful when his end lined up in the slot.

4. An example of stats not revealing everything: Newton finally started winning games in the fourth quarter, yet that was his only negatively-graded quarter. And his first-half numbers were significantly better than what he put up in the last two quarters.

5. Newton’s best-graded route was the post. That just happens to be Kelvin Benjamin’s best as well. Newton’s worst routes were corners. That just happens to be one the Panthers will likely send Benjamin on quite a bit.

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BBR NUGGETS

• Chris Wesseling on Luke Kuechly: “The new model for the middle linebacker.” — NFL.com
• Greg Hardy hosted a football camp outside Memphis. — Instagram
• Newton went back to Blinn College. — Twitter
• Colin Cole went to a concert. — Twitter
• Melvin White got married. — Instagram
• A badger showed up at Brad Nortman’s wedding. — Twitter
• Socks. — Instagram

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