At least one was more egregious that Stewart’s. Nobody, it appears, bothered to tell the Denver Broncos, Carolina Panthers or the referees about the new safety measures.
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Only one was flagged as a penalty. Newton was tested after the game.
The NFL has had this problem in how the rules inconsistently protect mobile quarterbacks for years, and it is a significant challenge because the size and athleticism of Newton is a game-changer and the Panthers deploy him in a way that subjects his body to punishment when he decides to take off and run with the ball.
“I’m not just going to always say it’s race; I’m not going to keep fanning the flames of race in every situation”, Cecil said.
“The defence gave us great opportunities. We just had to execute”. The optimism of it all [is] it’s just the first game of the year. We’ve still got 15 to go. “He’s going to watch film and he’s going to get so much better”.
“People throw all these jingles out there about he’s mobile, he’s bigger, he’s more physical”.
The Panthers took a 17-7 led into the fourth quarter of the first Super Bowl rematch to start a season since 1970 but Siemian hit running back C.J. Anderson for a 25-yard touchdown on the next snap.
The Broncos collected three sacks and hit Newton eight more times, not counting the abuse he took on his 11 runs. It drew a flag and would’ve moved the Panthers into closer field goal range with a few plays left.
There were no signs the Panthers’ medical staff evaluated Newton after the hit from Stewart or the ATC spotter intervened.
Denver won 21-20, and the Broncos repeatedly unloaded with helmet-to-helmet hits on Newton. The only penalty called on that play was a face-masking personal foul against Carolina centre Ryan Kalil. “I really like this officiating crew, so it wasn’t something that I know they did intentionally”.
“It’s not fun getting hit in the head”, Newton told reporters after the game. “We made a bunch of errors; we made a bunch of mistakes and it nearly cost us the game”.
One of the big talking points around the National Football League this offseason was concussions. But the loss hurt because everything we did, we geared up to winning this game and now we’ve got to win the next one. “But it is what it is. It’s not gonna make a difference now”.
It said there was communication between medical personnel on the Carolina sideline, including the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant, and the two independent certified athletic trainer spotters in the booth.
While acknowledging that the officials have a very hard job, Rivera put the onus on the league office, saying that if the NFL decides retroactively that a hit was egregious, players need to be suspended and fined – at least, if the NFL really wants to protect its players. He was asked by reporters if he’d undergone concussion testing Thursday.
“They determined based on what they saw, when they reviewed the tapes during the game, that he was OK to continue”, Rivera said.
Stewart said after the game he felt like he led with his shoulder, not his head. That’s what I do feel. “I lost an endorsement”.
“It’s unfortunate. I thought our guys played well enough. It’s OK, though, I figured that some type of repercussion would happen”.
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The reason Cecil was outraged by all the no-calls is because he thought the Broncos were targeting his son, and should’ve been punished for it. They knocked the heck out of us a lot too. “He goes to shoot a little layup and gets hacked and hammered and they don’t call it”, Rivera said.
