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Protecting Cam Newton - taking a "Hockey Enforcer" approach?

hepcat

By hepcat,
in Carolina Panthers

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hepcat

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In light of recent comments made by Cam Newton, who after taking another questionable hit on Sunday, says he "Doesn't feel safe" playing the game anymore, I started thinking about how other sports protect their star players. Cam's comments are a long time coming. He could have torn his ACL on the hit taken by Cardinals defensive lineman Calais Campbell. He's endured several more late hits, and hits to the head just in 2016. Defenders seem to strategize to hit Newton after the whistle because they know the refs aren't going to call penalties. But violence is a part of the game. The only other sport with the same amount of violence inflicted in the NFL is hockey. Aside from the hits the players take, there is another key element of violence - fighting.

The NHL is the only major US sport that allows fighting, and the reason for this is clear. An enforcer, usually one of the toughest guys on the team, is used as a physical presence to protect the star(s) of the team. There is no better example of this than Marty McSorely, who protected the great one, Wayne Gretzky, for most of his career. If an opposing player hit Gretzky, even clean and legal, they had to answer to McSorely. 

The documentary below speculates how much shorter the careers of some great NHL players would have been had they not had enforcers protecting them. There's no doubt they would have been hit more often and could have had a shorter career if opposing players didn't fear repercussions. (Starts around 16:15)

The NFL is different. It relies on penalties and fines to protect the star players, and that system is failing one of the leagues biggest stars in Cam Newton. In the NFL, throwing a punch would get you ejected from the game almost immediately (unless your name is Odell Beckham - but let's not get into that). Fighting is strictly forbidden, as is celebrating after scores, and supposedly, hitting a player late, in the head, or certain hits to a QB while they are in the pocket. These rules are designed to protect the NFL's players, or so the league has said.

But these rules don't seem to apply to Cam Newton. In 2015, a shocking ZERO roughing the passer penalties were called on late hits to Newton. Maybe it is because he's already one of the biggest guys on the field, and the league doesn't think a guy his size needs protecting? Maybe it's Cam's style of play - he does play like a running back as well as a QB? Maybe it's because, like Ed Hochuli said, he's "not old enough?" Whatever the reason, it's clear something needs to be done. The NFL is not going to take responsibility for protecting him as the rules they have created say they should. In fact, they just deflect the blame by saying they've actually missed MORE calls on other QBs, perhaps in a piss-poor effort to deflect attention away from Newton. http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/10/31/nfls-position-on-cam-newton-11-quarterbacks-have-more-missed-roughing-calls-since-2013/

Should the Panthers begin to take a more hockey-like approach to protecting Newton?

It's tricky. The NFL is just too different than the NHL to have a straight up enforcer on the field to protect your star player. Retaliating to a late hit by a defender by say, an offensive lineman, would result in an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and a possible ejection from the game. But, would it be worth a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to send a message to the other team that the Panthers will not continue to let Cam Newton willingly absorb hits that are explicitly banned in the rules of the game? With their backs up against the wall on this issue, the Panthers are out of options. The players around Cam must start acting more like hockey enforcers, scaring the other team into thinking twice about hitting their star QB, or risk consequences. It's that, or continue to allow their star QB to take more hits, miss more games, and possibly shorten his career if it hasn't already been shortened to begin with, because the NFL sure isn't coming to the rescue on this issue.

It's time to stop playing nice with the NFL. The Panthers need to start taking a new approach to protecting Cam, or they risk losing him all together.

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