Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton claims referee Ed Hochuli gave him a very disturbing reason for why he did not get a late hit call in the fourth quarter on Sunday — that Newton isn’t old enough yet for a call like that.
Hochuli has denied saying that.
NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino said on NFL Network Monday that Hochuli told him he said nothing to Newton about not getting a call because of a lack of seniority.
“I certainly wasn’t there, but I’ve spoken with Ed,” Blandino said, via Darin Gantt of Pro Football Talk. “Ed was adamant that he did not say that. He told me that he said that ‘the difference is you were running.’ I think when you look at the tape it does look like Ed did say that, I think at one point. You can’t see everything that Ed says, but he’s adamant he didn’t say it and I think that’s where we are right now and we’re just going to kind of move on from there.”
A video of the exchange between Newton and Hochuli that was posted on Black and Blue Review appears to show that the last thing Hochuli said before walking away from Newton was “you were running.” It’s unclear what was said prior to that.
Blandino said the NFL would look to see if there were any microphones around that picked up the brief conversation and that Hochuli would be disciplined if need be.
As we mentioned before, Hochuli has a reputation for forcefully standing by some horrible calls. We have no way of knowing what he actually said to Newton, but that would be pretty childish of Cam to make something like that up.
