Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers looks before throwing the ball, in a showdown with the New England Patriots on Monday. Photo: AFP

Cam Newton threw three touchdown (TD) passes, including the game winner to Ted Ginn with 59 seconds remaining, as the Carolina Panthers beat New ­England 24-20 for their sixth NFL win in a row.

The victory, which came only after controversy on the final play, lifted Carolina to 7-3, one game behind ­National Football Conference South ­Division leaders New Orleans.

The Patriots fell to 7-3, still two games ahead of Miami and the New York Jets in the American Football Conference East.

A pressured Newton found Ginn near the left sideline just inside the 20-yard line. Ginn cut to the middle of the field to evade one tackler and outraced two more to the corner of the end zone for the winning points, capping an 83-yard Carolina drive.

"I just wanted to give Ted a chance to make a play and he made it happen," Newton said.

New England's Tom Brady, who has made 32 career game-winning drives in the fourth quarter or over-time, made a clutch 23-yard completion to Rob Gronkowski on fourth down to keep a last drive alive.

That set up the Patriots at the Carolina 25-yard line with six se­conds to play and they used half of that on a seven-yard pass to set up the final play, on which Brady was intercepted to end the game.

A penalty flag was thrown in the end zone but the referee overruled the back judge on the play, saying that no foul had been committed and the game was over.

The ruling was that New England's Gronkowski, who had been clearly held on the play, would have had no chance to catch the under-­thrown ball even if he had not been fouled, thus there was no foul and no last chance for the Patriots.

Newton connected with Brandon LaFell on a nine-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter and the teams traded second-quarter field goals to leave the Panthers ahead 10-7 at halftime.

Brady and Gronkowski ­connected on a nine-yard touchdown pass 4:29 into the third quarter but Newton answered with a 15-yard touchdown pass to Greg Olsen 8:21 later to give the Panthers a 17-10 lead.

New England equalized on Stevan Ridley's one-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter and the Patriots went ahead 20-17 on Stephen Gostkowski's 26-yard field goal with 6:32 remaining in the fourth quarter, setting up Carolina's march for the game-winning touchdown.

"We came up short. It wasn't good enough," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said.

AFP - Global Times