The NFL has not been able to track down audio of the exchange between Cam Newton and referee Ed Hochuli last weekend, so the case is basically closed. That doesn’t necessarily mean Newton was lying, and one of his teammates is confident that the Panthers quarterback wouldn’t fabricate a story like that.
During an appearance on PFT Live Tuesday, tight end Greg Olsen said he has no reason to not believe Newton.
“Cam obviously made it pretty clear what he heard and there’s no reason to believe that Cam would make something up,” Olsen said. “That’s not Cam, that’s not the way he operates. … He’s not a complainer, that’s just not his personality. And so obviously he felt like he was disrespected and Cam spoke up for himself and said what he needed to say and that’s kind of the way it is.”
Newton claims Hochuli told him he was “not old enough” to get a late hit call on a questionable play. Hochuli insists he told Newton he did not get the call because he was running on the play, and a video appears to show those words coming out of Hochuli’s mouth toward the end of the brief discussion.
Olsen said it was obvious right away that Hochuli had said something that bothered Newton.
“We could tell he was obviously pretty frustrated by something,” he added. “He was still kind of talking with Ed and kind of walking back you could see with his body language he was a little befuddled over something. We went right into the next play. We didn’t really have a chance, we really didn’t have much of a discussion on it during the game but after the game he made it pretty clear that he felt like it was a disrespectful comment and something that he wanted to get out there.”
When asked on Wednesday about Hochuli’s denial, Newton didn’t back down.
Asked if he stands by what he said about Hochuli since he denied accusation, Cam Newton: "Well, did you expect him to say something else?"
— Black & Blue Review (@BlackBlueReview) September 30, 2015
The NFL has basically said that there is no proof Hochuli did anything wrong, so the incident will not be investigated any further. Imagine if they took that same stance with Deflategate? That would have been nice.
