Tom Brady and Cam Newton do not share a lot in common.<\/p>\n
One has been to nine Super Bowls and won six of them. The other has been to one and lost it.<\/p>\n
But they share this: each is leaving the only National Football League team for which he has ever played.\u00a0Brady is on his way\u00a0from the New England Patriots<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Newton is on the\u00a0Carolina Panthers’\u00a0trading block.<\/p>\n Both Brady and Newton left lasting legacies on their teams. Yet\u00a0each is leaving with hard feelings.<\/p>\n Brady spent 20 seasons with the Patriots. He went from a sixth-round draft pick from the University of Michigan to\u00a0one of the most decorated quarterbacks in NFL history.<\/p>\n Newton, having spent nine years with the Panthers, came into the league\u00a0as their overall No. 1 draft choice\u00a0after\u00a0his Auburn Tigers won the 2010\u00a0National Championship.\u00a0He became the first rookie quarterback to pass for\u00a04,000 yards in a season and earned his lone Most Valuable Player Award\u00a0in 2015.<\/p>\n Among Brady’s defining NFL\u00a0games,\u00a0were the 20-17 victory over the\u00a0\u201cGreatest Show on Turf\u201d St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI\u00a0that began the Patriots’ dynasty, and the comeback from a\u00a028-3\u00a0deficit\u00a0to defeat the Atlanta Falcons\u00a034-28 in overtime\u00a0in Super Bowl LI.<\/p>\n Newton brought an enduring panache every time he stepped onto the field. While his tenure with the Panthers was littered with injuries, Newton showed his raw athleticism and energy, throwing the ball while scrambling and\u00a0excessively celebrating after he made a big play.<\/p>\n Brady’s\u00a0departure has been\u00a0on the horizon since 2018.\u00a0In a report published by ESPN,<\/a> New England head coach Bill Belichick wanted to move on from Brady and go with Jimmy Garoppolo as his starting quarterback.<\/p>\n Patriots owner Robert Kraft, however, still believed Brady had some good years left in him and traded Garoppolo to the San Francisco 49ers for a 2018 second-round draft pick. The speculation about\u00a0the Brady and Belichick relationship increased, yet both parties maintained that they possessed a lot of respect for one another.<\/p>\n Despite Brady leading the Patriots to a sixth Super Bowl to end the 2018 season, the Patriots were reluctant to extend his contract. For years, Brady took a pay cut so the organization could put a team around him to succeed.<\/p>\n It took until August of 2019 for Brady to get a $20.25 million signing bonus and a provision for the Patriots to not franchise tag him in 2020 and beyond.\u00a0With that, Brady’s departure was virtually a given.<\/p>\n For Newton, the split was inevitable.\u00a0 With\u00a0the Panthers quarterback recovering well from his foot surgery last December, the franchise remained committed to making him the starter,\u00a0according to a report from NFL Network\u2019s Ian Rapoport.<\/a><\/p>\n But with coaching changes, along with the fact Newton still has one year remaining on his contract, it is evident that Panthers management wants to go in a different direction while shoring up cap space.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, the Panthers announced that Newton was granted permission to be traded. This, however, contradicted the quarterback\u2019s version of events.<\/p>\n \u201cYou forced me like this,\u201d\u00a0Newton said on a Panthers Instagram post\u00a0<\/a>\u201cI love the Panthers to death and will always love you guys. Please do not try and play me, or manipulate the narrative and act like I wanted this.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady took a different approach in saying goodbye to his former team.<\/p>\n \u201cPats Nation will always be a part of me,\u201d\u00a0Brady said in his recent Instagram post.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cI will always love you and what we have shared\u2014a life full of fun memories.\u201d<\/p>\n Divorce is never easy. For\u00a0pro\u00a0athletes,\u00a0being traded or released is a part of the business.<\/p>\n As Brady and Newton, two different quarterbacks, have demonstrated this week, a player’s\u00a0loyalty to one franchise is difficult to achieve and maintain over the course of a career.<\/p>\n Main photo:Tom Brady, Cam Newton, and Moving On<\/h2>\n
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\nEmbed from Getty Images<\/a>