Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton has received a great deal of heat from the press in recent weeks after he claimed he no longer feels safe while in the pocket and isn't having fun anymore. Well, I'm here to say Newton, like all other dual-threat quarterbacks, has a point. While I agree with many of these same critics that the NFL has gotten too protective of quarterbacks overall, dual-threat quarterbacks like Newton tend to be treated differently than traditional drop-back passers by officiating crews, and that's not right. I think this is largely due to many people, officials included, seeing quarterbacks like Newton as running backs behind center as opposed to actual quarterbacks. This shouldn't be the case, though. When a quarterback's behind the line-of-scrimmage, regardless if he has the speed of Michael Vick or Tom Brady, if he's hit in a manner which violates a league rule, the defense should be penalized. Newton might be bigger and quicker than most other quarterbacks, but if gets hit low or hit late, the yellow flags should come out just like with the league's slowest and/or smallest QBs. No, no one likes a whiner, but in this case, Cam Newton's complaints are quite valid, and the league should look into the matter.
After its first week, I gave The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore a B+ grade. While I didn't think the show appeared to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I also liked the Daily Show meets Politically Incorrect vibe I got from it, and thought, with the proper adjustments, the show would indeed provide a great fill-in for The Colbert Report . In the show's succeeding weeks, however, I've been less impressed by it and think that if it doesn't make certain adjustments, it could be in jeopardy of losing many long-time viewers of the show's time slot. One major issue I think the show's had to this point is a lack of direction. It's been unable to decide whether it wants to be a comedy show with serious conversation sprinkled in or a serious show with comedy sprinkled in. It's almost as if the show's writers want to give The Nightly Show a Real Time with Bill Maher feel. The problem with that idea or format is the fact Real Time is an hour lon...
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