Day 18

Fresh Start_18: Head Hunting
If you didn’t watch the Panthers and Broncos game last night, you could consider yourself lucky. Unfortunately, you missed a very good football game, that was entertaining until the final whistle. Von Miller lead his defense in a hard fought game. I won’t spoil anything in this article, I will give out my game ball and do a review later today.
What I want to focus this column on is how disrespectful the Denver defense was to Cam Newton and the game of football. Thanks to @Deadspin on twitter there is a video showing Brandon Marshall, Von Miller, and Darian Stewart all targeted Cam Newton last night. Each time Cam would turn to the refs and check for a flag. Only one time did a flag get called and that is extremely dangerous by the refs calling the game. The refs that called last night’s game were not rookie refs. Cam has not shown any signs of a concussion, and I am surprised at that. The shots he took last night made my head hurt. The Panthers also have to be at fault because they should have taken Cam out of the game after the last hit he took in the forth. Concussion protocol for the NFL says that Cam would have to sit out at least one play to examined for a concussion after a hit to the head. If you count all the hits, Cam would have had to miss at least three plays last night. We will have to wait to see if the NFL will punish the Panthers for violating a crucial protocol. The NFL has spent an enormous amount of money on studying concussion following the very famous lawsuit.
Honestly I would suspend Brandon Marshall, Von Miller, and Darian Stewart for three games at least for targeting the head. I would fine the Panthers organization $25,000 for violating the concussion protocol. I’m sorry if that seems harsh but head hunting in the NFL just has no place. The game is already has enough concussions, we don’t need players launching themselves at another players’ head. The punishment for doing this in a game should be so exponentially rough that it would change the way players tackle. Maybe a big fine would have to be added on to a game suspension. Cam Newton is a star in this league, just like Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Russel Wilson. Why do they get the calls and Cam doesn’t? Is it because of the team he is on, or because of the dances he does? Either way the refs should call the games equally to everyone’s safety. I like many people love the game of football, but I also don’t want to see anyone get hurt while being targeted, with no control of whether or not they are going to get hit in the head.
So the next time Cam extends the ball for a first down, does his “Superman” touchdown celebration, or even his new touchdown dance, let him because he deserves it. For being disrespected and left on an island.
Sources:(nfl.com, twitter.com/deadspin, nflplayers.com, nfl.com/rules)

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