Cam Newtown

Glad to see there was widespread outrage and condemnation of the ridiculous no call on Cam Newton being hit in the head last night. Walt Coleman's crew even seemed to go out of its way to insult Newton by not only not calling a penalty on Washington but calling a 15 yarder on Newton?!

There's been some complaint about the inability of the Washington player to avoid hitting the sliding (feet first) Newton.

Whatever the intent of the defender, the fact is he hit a QB that was sliding. 9 times out of 10 that gets called as a penalty. To add insult to injury, the defender also delivered a blow to the QB's head. In the league's efforts to protect the quarterbacks and prevent hits to the head, it should have been called a penalty. In fact, most people on the field and in the broadcast booth thought the flag was initially on the Redskins. 

Even more egregiously, contrast it with the "late hit" that was called on the Panthers when they shoved Cousins out of bounds later in the game. Replays showed Cousins wasn't actually out of bounds when the defender made contact with him. As such (and Gruden made this point), there shouldn't have been a penalty called.

But the larger point is that  one QB got the benefit of a questionable call and one didn't.  And the one that didn't - Cam Newton - hasn't been getting them all year. After a while, it adds up.