Cam Newton Continues to Get Targeted

On Monday night against the Washington Redskins, Cam Newton took a shot to the head while sliding at the end of a short run play near the sideline. The hit, put on by Redskins linebacker Trent Murphy, was not penalized during the game, a decision that was lamented by the announcers of the game and has since been criticized by many analysts, coaches, and even former officials.

Walt Coleman, the head official for the Monday night matchup, denied any wrongdoing after the game. It's an eerily similar situation to that of week 8, where Cam Newton expressed discontentment with the officiating in a game against the Cardinals, where Newton took a hit late in the knees that went unpenalized. Coleman and his crew were also the officials for that game, and the NFL's post-game review of the hit determined that it should have been penalized. 

I understand the difficulty of this situation on NFL officials. For the most part, penalties inherently only benefit one side of the ball, so there will always be anger and criticism coming from the other side. When it comes to player safety, however, we're all on the same team in understanding the value of penalizing unnecessary blows to the head, especially to defenseless players. Hopefully the national attention of this ongoing story of Cam vs the Officials will create an atmosphere of more equal treatment off all players by officials.