Officials will protect Kirk Cousins and other QBs. Why won't they protect Cam Newton?

If you want to know why Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers can’t figure out why officials don’t offer him the same level of protection as other quarterbacks, just look at Monday night’s game.

On a scramble in the second quarter, Newton got hit in the head by Trent Murphy of the Washington Redskins. Even if you wanted to argue that Newton’s slide was too late and he was fair game to be hit, you can’t hit a quarterback in the head like that. Newton got up and flipped the ball at Murphy. A flag was thrown … on Newton. He got 15 yards for taunting. No flag was thrown for the hit.

It looked even worse when you compare it to a hit on Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins in the fourth quarter. Cousins was running full speed down the sideline and never made a clear move to go out of bounds. So Panthers defensive tackle Kawann Short shoved him out of bounds. Cousins was still in bounds when Short shoved him. By any reasonable measure it was a legal football play. But officials protect quarterbacks so Short was flagged.

At least, officials protect quarterbacks who aren’t Newton.

Maybe Newton, like Panthers coach Ron Rivera said earlier this year, runs into the same problem as Shaquille O’Neal did in his basketball career: He’s so big that officials don’t think they need to protect him. Or maybe because Newton runs so often, officials subconsciously treat him like a running back and not a quarterback. Whatever the reason, the Panthers have a right to be upset. Newton has complained about a lack of fair treatment from officials this season and even called NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to talk to him about it, but it still hasn’t changed.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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