Another obvious hit to the head of Cam Newton. Another no call. And here we are again talking about the miserable, disgraceful, awful state of NFL officiating.
I could list the reactions I received from players around the league over the Newton hit in texts to me Monday night and Tuesday morning. I could write about how one longtime veteran player believes there was significant bias against Newton from some game officials. Or how another player thinks there needs to be a union investigation into the state of officiating. Or about the anger players felt watching Newton take a hit to the head with no call...again. And some of these were players who don't even necessarily like Newton.
The disgust was palpable. And it wasn't just players. ESPN's esteemed Michael Wilbon, wondered in an epic Twitter rant if there's a conspiracy against Newton. Yes, I could list all of these reactions, but there's a bigger issue—that we are reaching the point where officiating is getting so putrid, so incompetent, it is compromising player safety.
And that should be what concerns the NFL most about the flag-less call on the Newton hit. The league continues to hurt not only its own product with these high visibility officiating misses, but also its own players. It's a growing crisis that compromises one of the league's central tenets—that it cares about player safety.
The play itself was typical of the state of the NFL now. Newton was hit in the head while sliding—a clear penalty—but it was Newton's throwing the football at Washington linebacker Trent Murphy that drew a quick flag.
This is peak NFL. The refs don't throw a flag for the initial offense, but the reaction to that offense. Taunting is treated like a mortal threat. So is something harmless like showmanship, such as Ezekiel Elliott jumping into a Salvation Army canister. Or if, God forbid, Odell Beckham dances.
But a hit to the head of Newton isn't called. Player safety, my ass.
Worse, and maybe this is the biggest part of this story, is that it seems there are different tiers of protection, like warranties on a car. Many quarterbacks, like Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers, get the platinum warranties, while Newton and other players get the bronze.
Brady seemingly gets every call and even yells at the game officials without penalty. If a defender hit Brady the way Newton got hit in the Washington game, that defender's yet unborn children would be flagged.
Meanwhile, Newton has to beg the commissioner to get flags, and even that doesn't work.
"It's really taking the fun out of the game for me," he said in an October postgame press conference after taking a handful of unpenalized hits in a win over the Cardinals. "At times I don't even feel safe. And enough is enough."
Let's review how we reached this point. Newton has taken numerous shots to the head or knees without penalty. I've seen it on more than a few occasions. Among the most egregious was a hit in Carolina's opener this season against Denver, and against Arizona in October, when Newton was hit in the knees by Calais Campbell. Both hits were obvious and neither resulted in a call.
After the Cardinals game, Newton reacted angrily, to the lack of justice after the hits and to the notion that he does not feel he is officiated fairly when standing in the pocket, let alone when he scrambles or slides:
I don't think there's a person that can go through what I go through and still keep their heads. Hits to the head, that's one thing. But when you're not protected in the pocket, that's another thing.
"The story of my life ever since I came in is, 'Oh, oh, well, we missed that one. I'm sorry. I'll try to get it.' That's bullcrap. As player in this league if we do something stupid we get fined. If you do something derogatory to somebody else, we get fined. I just can't keep accepting, 'Oh, we missed that one.' Or 'I apologize for doing that.' Or 'I didn't see it.' That's horsecrap.
The unpenalized hits against Arizona led to Newton having a phone conversation with Roger Goodell. Next time, maybe Newton should call 9-1-1.
Of course, that next time arrived Monday night against Washington. Newton began to slide and he was hit by Murphy, in the head, right in front of the official again.
In fact, it was in front of the same officiating crew that drew Newton's ire in the Arizona game. Walt Coleman was the culprit in the non-call against Arizona, and his crew officiated the Washington game.
"What I saw was that Cam slid late, and the defender went over the top," Coleman told USA TODAY Sports after the game. "I didn't see any forcible contact with the head."
But to anyone watching, the contact was obvious—and again, it happened directly in front of the ref. How everyone watching could see Newton's head snap back, and the official couldn't, is part of the problem.
Even worse is the fact that in the same game, a sideline hit on Kirk Cousins was penalized, and that hit even had ESPN analyst Jon Gruden wondering aloud if it was worthy of penalty.
It wasn't. But Cousins was deemed worthy of protection. Newton often isn't.
And that makes little sense considering how explicit the rules are. As Rule 7, Section 2, Article 1 of the NFL's rulebook states:
A defender must pull up when a runner begins a feet-first slide. This does not mean that all contact by a defender is illegal. If a defender has already committed himself, and the contact is unavoidable, it is not a foul unless the defender commits some other act, such as helmet-to-helmet contact or by driving his forearm or shoulder into the head or neck area of the runner.
On Monday night, there was contact with Newton's head; the rule was violated—but not flagged.
The larger point, and the greater danger to players, is the arbitrary nature of penalties, and apparent, at times, flagrant disregard for the rules as they apply to Newton.
Coleman said all he does is ref. There's no bias for or against Newton.
"We just work the game," he said. "And if it's a foul, we call it a foul. If it's not, then we don't. We just officiate the game and do the best of our ability. So it doesn't make any difference to us who is playing or who the quarterback is. We're trying to get the plays correct."
That may be Coleman's intent but that's not what he and officials are doing when it comes to actually officiating the games. They are missing calls—a lot, especially when it comes to Newton.
This is the state of officiating. It's sorry. It's incompetent.
It's also dangerous.
Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @mikefreemanNFL.