The NFL has got to get its doo-doo together.

Is there any doubt why the administration of the National Football League is more abhorred by the players and coaches than any time in its history? Commissioner Roger Goodell, who makes $44 million a year at the behest of the owners, is more unpopular than any NFL boss to precede him due mostly to his lack of consistency.

Cam Newton has been a punching bag for defensive players since the opening game of the season, and rarely draws a penalty for vicious hits while veterans Tom Brady and Drew Brees get flags in their favor all the time. Newton was going into his slide Monday night at Washington when the Redskins’ Trent Murphy left his feet and flew into Newton, making contact with his helmet. That, by rule, is spearing or at least an unnecessary roughness call. It was Newton who got flagged for flipping the ball at Murphy.

The New York Giants were penalized $150,000 and Coach Ben McAdoo fined another $50,000 for the illegal use of a walkie-talkie to transmit information to quarterback Eli Manning. The Giants also will drop 12 places with its fourth-round draft pick next year. Compare that to Brady’s four-game suspension, the Patriots’ $1 million fine and the loss of a first and fourth-round draft pick for a Deflategate charge that was never proven in the first place.

Yes, the Giants fully cooperated with the NFL in the two-day investigation while the Patriots eventually stonewalled the league during a probe that lasted six months and was no more than an equipment violation to begin with. Which penalty fit the crime more?

Why the NFL cannot get its rules application more in order is beyond me. It looks like favoritism and incompetence between Goodell’s relationships with the 32 owners who pay his obscene salary and flunkies from the front office to officials on the field who can’t seem to get on the same page from one flag to another.

Newton rarely receives the benefit of the doubt on any call, and he is another face of the NFL that gets slapped when the league should be protecting its marquee players instead of punishing them unfairly.

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