Cam Newton’s father Cecil was bothered by what he saw on the field Thursday night during the season-opening game between the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos and thinks the referees need to be held accountable for not doing a better job. Cecil Newton also thinks there is a bias among referees against his son and wonders why Cam didn’t receive the same preferential treatment many other marquee quarterbacks receive.
Cecil spoke with ESPN’s Jim Trotter and vented about the beating his son took and questioned the referees.
“I’m beginning to question the consistency of how games are being called — and who they would call this particular play against versus this particular player,” Newton’s father told ESPN’s Jim Trotter in an interview. “Was Cam treated differently from other quarterbacks? In this case, yes he was — clearly. Anybody who has followed the game for any length of time and has a working knowledge of how the game is to be played would agree with that statement.
“People throw all these jingles out there about he’s mobile, he’s bigger, he’s more physical. There’s a lot of this and that. At the end of the day, Cam deserves to be protected just like Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Ryan Tannehill, Kirk Cousins, Andy Dalton, and the list goes on and on.”
Cecil Newton also questioned whether the Broncos players were deliberately head-hunting Cam. He wonders whether there is a racial bias that accounts for the lack of protection the Panthers QB received.
“These guys have to do a better, unbiased job. I don’t want it to necessarily be because he’s a black quarterback. But it causes you to wonder — are you really biased or have some hidden reason [for treating him differently]? Because if everybody else can see the targeting — I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve gotten since last night, in the last 12 hours.”
“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,” he said. “But it causes me to wonder. Help me understand through transparency. Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL, help me understand how this can happen to the reigning MVP. Explain that to me. I’m not going to fan the flames of race in this particular category, but I really sit back and ask myself, ‘Would this have happened to some of his other fellow colleagues?’ Let the public answer the question for themselves.”
The amount of shots Newton took during the Panthers’ loss on Thursday has been the biggest storyline to emerge from the game. There were questions about some hits he took to the head, especially one late in the game that was negated by off-setting penalties (you can see the hits here).
Newton is not in the NFL’s concussion protocol despite the shots he took, but you do have to wonder about the referees not protecting him more. Reigning league MVPs typically are treated like the league’s golden boys, but that clearly wasn’t the case with Cam on Thursday.
