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Cam Newton’s Roughing-the-Passer Complaints Open Pandora’s Box of Questions
- Updated: November 1, 2016
Could the NFL be sitting on a trove of data about blown penalties and officiating errors? If so, then this is information that teams, players and fans need to see. But they won’t, and that’s a shame.
Cam Newton complained about the officiating after Sunday’s Panthers-Cardinals game after absorbing a pair of un-flagged hits that looked a lot like roughing the passer. Newton even said that he would seek a meeting with Roger Goodell to talk about his status as the league’s human pinata.
The NFL has vowed to review the matter, but a source told Pro Football Talk that officials have only missed three roughing calls on Newton since 2013. That’s right. Three…in over three seasons.
Eleven other quarterbacks have had it worse, according to the source. Call them Newton’s Eleven: Jay Cutler, Alex Smith, Geno Smith, Josh McCown, Andrew Luck, Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins, Joe Flacco, Ben Roethlisberger, Case Keenum and Ryan Tannehill, in the order listed by PFT.
It’s an eclectic list which raises many questions that we will get to in a moment. But first, the big questions:
Since when does the NFL have uncalled roughing-the-passer penalties since 2013 lying around to be referenced the moment a quarterback raises an objection? Does the league also keep track of penalties that should not have been called? Does it keep track of missed penalties and inappropriate flags for personal fouls, holding, pass interference and other infractions? Is it all on a spreadsheet, collated by team, player and officiating crew? And if so, why aren’t we allowed to see it?
The answers to those questions aren’t clear. Former vice president of officiating Mike Pereira has described the intensive, meticulous process of grading every official on every play to me several times in the past.
“I would track calls both made and missed by an official and the tracking would have included who the foul was called on or who it should have been called on,” he told me in an email Monday.
But there was no long-range database or ability to track the victim of a blown call during Pereira’s tenure, which ended in 2010. Perhaps it’s a new feature, as evidenced by the “since 2013” limit on the Newton roughing data.
So either (A) there are three years of tabulated data that the NFL uses solely to evaluate officials and win proxy arguments with disgruntled quarterbacks; (B) someone in the league keeps track of uncalled roughing-the-passer penalties for personal satisfaction; or (C) someone in the league made up a number and a list to circulate in the media as an excuse for not picking up the phone when Newton calls.
Options B and C sound preposterous, even by NFL standards. But option A raises a whole stack of questions.
Do Newton’s three missed roughing calls include regular season and postseason games? What …
