Why Cam Newton should worry about MVP curse in Super Bowl 50

— -- We all know about the Madden curse, which says players who win the Madden cover vote are likely to experience misfortune in the following season.

It turns out there could be a similar curse for quarterbacks who win the AP MVP award and then play in a Super Bowl. This tandem of achievements has occurred on 18 occasions and the teams that the quarterbacks play for have gone 6-12 in those contests.

In many cases, these elite signal-callers had subpar or worse performances that were major contributing factors to the losses. The group includes Earl Morrall, Joe Theismann, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason, Rich Gannon and Peyton Manning.

Considering Cam Newton has the inside track to win this season's MVP award, it seems appropriate to ask if this curse will have a negative impact on him as well.

After looking at the metrics and game tapes, it turns out that this concern is well-founded for a variety of reasons.

Inconsistency

The most troubling issue for Newton is a lack of consistency. This shows up in many areas but may be most prevalent in the Total QBR metric. This statistic measures quarterback performance on all action plays and weighs it on a 0-to-100 scale. Using this scale means a Total QBR of 50 is an average mark and anything lower is considered a below-average performance.

Newton had seven games this season with a Total QBR of lower than 50. There were only 10 quarterbacks with that many subpar Total QBR occurrences and only six ( Nick Foles, Philip Rivers, Sam Bradford, Ryan Tannehill, Blake Bortles and Derek Carr) had more.

The lack of consistency also showed up when comparing Newton's numbers in Weeks 1-9 (the Panthers' first eight games of the season) versus his statistics in Weeks 9-17.

In the first half of the 2015 campaign, Newton completed only 53.7 percent of his passes (ranked next-to-last among qualifying quarterbacks), averaged 7.4 yards per pass attempt (16th) and had a 50.7 Total QBR (24th out of 32 qualifying quarterbacks).

Those metrics spiked in the second half of the season, as Newton completed 65.9 percent of his attempts (11th), racked up 8.1 yards per attempt (fifth) and posted a 79.8 Total QBR (sixth).

Stacked metrics versus an incredibly favorable second-half schedule

Taken at face value, it might seem that Newton's second-half numbers were simply a matter of him and the Panthers' offense hitting their collective stride after two months of struggles.

The truth is that a very high percentage of the improvement can be attributed to an unbelievably favorable second-half schedule.

During that eight-game stretch, six of Carolina's opponents were Dallas, New Orleans, the New York Giants, Tampa Bay, Tennessee and Washington. Those six clubs all ranked 22nd or lower in yards per attempt, with Tennessee and New Orleans making up two of the bottom four in that category.

In the games against these clubs, Newton completed 66.7 percent of his throws, tallied 8.1 yards per attempt, 6.9 yards per dropback and an 18-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

Hit for par in those favorable matchups

Newton's performance against these teams might be notable if he did better against them than the rest of the league, but that is not the case. When quarterbacks on other clubs faced the six aforementioned subpar foes, they posted a 66.2 percent completion rate, 7.9 yards per attempt, 7.1 yards per dropback and a 144-to-54 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

The completion rate and per attempt/per dropback totals are nearly equal to or better than Newton's numbers, so his performance there wasn't any better than what the rest of the league posted. To give him credit, Newton's touchdown-to-interception pace was much higher, but given that the rest of the passers had a 2.7-to-1 ratio in that area, everyone was apt to do well.

Was below par when not facing a highly favorable matchup

Newton posted a Total QBR of 50 or higher in all six of those second-half games against favorable foes.

But if those games are taken out of the equation, Newton had a Total QBR of lower than 50 in seven out of 10 regular-season games and seven out of 12 total games.

Has rarely faced unfavorable matchups this season

What makes all of this even worse for Newton's case is that he posted subpar Total QBR marks in a significant majority of his games despite having only three matchups against defenses that finished in the top 10 in Total QBR allowed this season (Arizona, Green Bay and Houston).

Denver might be the most difficult defensive matchup Newton has faced this season

That is quite worrisome when facing a Broncos defense that ranked second during the regular season in Total QBR allowed (41.7) and just forced Tom Brady to post his eighth-lowest Total QBR (22.0) in the 10 seasons this metric has been tracked.

Bottom line

Newton may be the most skilled player in the NFL, but his superb 2015 season can mostly be attributed to catching matchup lightning in a bottle in the second half. The matchup against Denver is anything but favorable. It is likely to lead to Newton following in many of his MVP predecessors' footsteps and posting a subpar Super Bowl performance that helps lead to a Carolina loss.