He remained in the trainer’s room for almost an hour after the game had ended after being sacked three times, and hit eight more, not counting the punishment he received on his 11 rushing attempts. The NFL has empowered them to declare a “medical timeout”. Newton finished the game 18 of 33 for 194 yards, and Benjamin caught six passes for 91 yards.
Advertisement
And Carolina would have won had Graham Gano made, instead of hooked, his 50-yard field goal attempt with 4 seconds remaining. Denver’s defense went hard at Newton who went hard back at them.
Only 22 times has a team been whistled for roughing the passer when facing Newton since he came into the league in 2011. Chris Harris Jr. intercepted Cam Newton two plays later and Anderson took it in from the 1. It’ll be great if he avoided a concussion, but that isn’t the issue.
Some believe that by the time his career is over, Cam Newton will have changed the way quarterback is played. There was enough smoke there to look for a fire. Here is video of that news conference (WARNING: Newton swears during one of the answers). He became defensive a year ago after his quarterback stayed in for three plays and completed a touchdown drive before being tested for a concussion in the locker room early in the third quarter of a 41-38 win against New Orleans. “I ” m not going to question the doctors”. “He’s going to watch film and he’s going to get so much better”. That play, a helmet-to-helmet hit by linebacker Brandon Marshall, in which the defender launched himself at Newton, was obviously a missed call, the source said, and should have been a penalty.
After the game, Newton said it isn’t his job to question the officials and doesn’t feel like the Broncos hit him in the head intentionally. Gano split the uprights on a kick that didn’t count just after Kubiak called timeout, then missed a minute later, but he says he doesn’t think the timeout affected him. No, it isn’t. It also isn’t fun being the ref who pulls a star player out of a critical moment of the game. Panthers team doctors did nothing. The hit left Newton doubled over in pain on the sideline.
The NFL says that Cam Newton showed “no indications” of concussion symptoms. Did that apply to Newton? That said, Newton is very good at looking fine when he most certainly isn’t. “Whether he was hurting or not, I couldn’t tell”. It was a mockery of every talking point offered by the league about how much they care about protecting players. There is still a ways to go.
Advertisement
At the very least, the National Football League needs to expand its replay system to help officials determine which hits are truly unsafe. Here’s a big, physical basketball player and he goes to set a pick and a guy falls down and they call a foul on him. A quarterback is considered defenseless in the pocket and cannot be hit in the helmet or neck area by an opponents helmet or face at ANY time (Rule 12, Section 2, Ar.7 of the NFL rule book), and as ESPN pointed out and as seen late in the second quarter, Von Miller should have been penalized for that exact violation (Kevin Seifert, NFL Nation).
