The N.F.L. has determined that a penalty should have been called against aDenver Broncos linebacker after his helmet-to-helmet hit against Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton in the third quarter of Thursday night’s game, which opened the football season.
Dean Blandino, the league’s chief of officiating, said in a statement that officials on the field had erred in not penalizing the linebacker, Brandon Marshall, for roughing the passer.
Blandino’s statement came as the league continued to combat the perception that it was not doing enough to protect players from hits that could lead to head trauma. In recent years, the league has added neurotrauma specialists in the press box and on the sideline to decide whether a player should be taken out of a game.
On Thursday, in a nationally televised rematch of last year’s Super Bowl, the Broncos hit Newton in the head at least three times. The league determined that one of those hits was not illegal because Newton was out of the pocket. A second hit to the head was not illegal because the defender, Von Miller, was grappling with a blocker at the time as Newton was being sacked.
The last hit, though, should have drawn a flag, the league said.
Newton, though, was not taken out of the game. In a statement, the league said that medical personnel on the Panthers’ sideline, including the neurotrauma specialist and two independent athletic trainers in the press box, had communicated after the hit, and that the neurotrauma specialist and team physician had reviewed video of the play. “They concluded there were no indications of a concussion that would require further evaluation and the removal of the player from the game,” the league said.
Newton, the league’s most valuable player last season, shrugged it off. “It’s not my job to question the officials,” he said. “I really like this officiating crew, so I know it wasn’t something they did intentionally. But it’s not fun to get hit in the head.”
The reaction to the hits was quick and clear. Scott Fowler, a columnist at The Charlotte Observer, said he was “furious” that Newton had not been taken off the field to be examined after being hit in the head.
Cecil Newton, Cam’s father, criticized the referees for failing to penalize the Broncos. “I think the culprit is the mere fact that they allowed the game to get out of control,” he told ESPN. “They allowed players to push the envelope to the very edge.”
In a story on the hits, The Ringer ran a headline that read, “It’s Getting Harder and Harder to Deny That Football Is Doomed.”
Hyperbole aside, the N.F.L. will continue to struggle to find a balance between keeping players safe and not destroying the flow of games, which are already burdened with challenges, video reviews and a blizzard of television timeouts. The league will always face pressure to make the game safer, but also to try to appease players and coaches, as well as fans, who do not want to see the action on the field diluted.
“In a way, the Cam Newton situation is the latest example to personify how tough it is for the N.F.L. to figure this out going forward,” said Lee Igel, an associate in the medical ethics division at NYU Langone Medical Center. “It’s medical interests versus business interests. Because there are enough different factors weighing in, it looks unsolvable.”
Last season, the league was criticized after several players were not removed from games even after being hit so severely they had trouble standing up. In one case, Case Keenum, a quarterback on the Rams, hit his head on the turf. A team trainer ran onto the field to look at him but returned to the sideline without removing him from the game. Only after the game did the Rams test Keenum to see whether he had sustained a concussion, and it was confirmed that he had.
In addition to the challenges of diagnosing a concussion in the middle of a game, players are often reluctant to admit they are hurt, and unwilling to go to the sideline to be evaluated. Coaches, too, can be reluctant to remove their best players, particularly at key junctures in the game. To reduce the chance of that happening, the league this summer said that it would fine teams hundreds of thousands of dollars and possibly take away their draft picks if they failed to take players who had sustained concussions out of games.
Troy Vincent, the N.F.L. executive vice president for football operations, this week highlighted the dangers of head hits on Twitter, noting that “it’s illegal to use the crown of the helmet to tackle.”
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