Oh, what a tangled web we weave when something something the Panthers are lying.
It’s not just the Panthers. The NFL, hopeful to avoid another embarrassment arising from what otherwise would be a blatant violation of the ever-evolving concussion protocol, may be in on it, too.
So is Adam Schefter of ESPN, who has passed along without any analysis or scrutiny the ridiculous notion that Cam Newton stumbled to the ground on the way to the sideline last Sunday because of a knee injury. A knee injury.
Go back and watch the video. At no point does team personnel ever check Newton’s knee. At no point does he ever point to his knee or his leg.
The party line was that he had been poked in the eye. Then, when the team realized how goofy it sounded that Newton couldn’t make it three or four more steps to the sideline without collapsing over an alleged poke in the eye, Panthers officials admitted that Newton was told to get down on the ground so that backup quarterback Derek Anderson would have more time to get ready to enter the game.
The Panthers, and the NFL, apparently have realized since then that the “we told Cam to fake it” approach isn’t ideal, especially with the concussion protocol now requiring a locker-room evaluation for any player who stumbles to the ground after taking a blow to the head.
So someone concocted the knee injury story, they passed it to someone with an extra-large social-media megaphone, and he passed it along to the audience without even the slightest hint that it’s a steaming pile of something that comes from a place somewhere between the eye and the knee.