Prior to capturing the 2010 Heisman Trophy at Auburn, Cam Newton was a backup quarterback at Florida as the school returned to prominence under coach Urban Meyer.
As such, Newton is well-qualified to speak on the widely criticized Netflix documentary Swamp Kings, which chronicles Florida’s program during Meyer’s tenure from 2005 through ’10, which included two national championships.
Among the issues Newton had with the documentary was how Netflix portrayed former Gators QB Chris Leak, who was the starter on Meyer’s first national championship team in 2006. Tebow played occasionally that season as a freshman in goal-line and short-yardage packages before emerging as one of the greatest college quarterbacks of all time after Leak graduated. But Leak’s role as the team’s starter in ’06 arguably was minimized in the documentary.
“Some of the things I did not like about the documentary was how they played Chris Leak, in my opinion,” Newton said in a TikTok post. “I was watching it like, they said things like, ‘We were just one quarterback away.’ Like, bro. Chris Leak was that motherf-----. Let’s not forget how pretty of a ball he threw. Started as a freshman in the SEC from Independence High School out of Charlotte. Like, what are we talking about? Granted, Tebow is everything and some. But bruh, let’s not try to dim the lights of Chris Leak.”
Newton also called out players missing from the documentary that were instrumental to the Gators’ championships.
“Lastly, where were these players? I really wanted to hear from Percy Harvin, Joe Haden, the Pouncey twins. Like there was so much that they left out. But other than that, it was a good documentary,” Newton added.
The documentary notably shied away from much discussion of Newton, who allegedly stole a laptop from a Florida student and was arrested on felony burglary, larceny and obstruction of justice charges, all of which eventually were dropped after the quarterback completed a pre-trial diversion program.
The documentary also mostly avoided discussing tight end Aaron Hernandez, who was an impactful player during his time at Florida. Hernandez was convicted of first-degree murder and ultimately took his own life in April 2017 at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Massachusetts.
Although Newton didn’t mention anything about the film’s producers’ failure to include himself and Hernandez in Swamp Kings, it’s clear many observers believe Netflix missed the mark on an opportunity to tell the complete story of Meyer’s run at Florida.
