The NFL is gearing up for what promises to be another round of bone-crunching action in the games the league has slated for Week 3, but there have been a lot of problems with hits on the field through the first two weeks. The league has doled out thousands of dollars in fines already as tempers have flared the first two weeks of the season.
The biggest penalties were handed down to Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh after a Week 1 play and Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive back Dashon Goldson following a transgression in Week 2.
Suh was slapped with a $100,000 fine for his hit on Minnesota Vikings center John Sullivan in the team's Week 1 34-24 victory. Suh blindsided Sullivan with a block from behind while Sullivan chased Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy who was running an interception back for a touchdown. The block from Suh was low causing a massive uproar throughout the NFL. The referees threw a flag on the play, causing the touchdown to be overturned.
Suh cost his team seven points and himself $100,000; he is appealing the fine but his hearing was pushed back from Sept. 13 to a later date.
"You got to ask the league that question, whether they wanted to make a decision off my reputation or off of this year or whatever it may be," Suh told NFL.com after Week 1. "It's the first game of the year, so I don't know."
Goldson emptied his wallet for the same amount as Suh following a helmet-to-helmet hit on Saints running back Darren Sproles. To go along with the suspension, the NFL was ready to ban Goldson for a game until the decision was eventually overturned. The Saints eventually won the game 16-14, but Goldson said his intentions are never to injure any player on the gridiron.
"My intentions are never to go out here and hurt nobody," Goldson told NFL.com following the play. "I'm not trying to hurt my team, and I'm definitely not trying to hurt myself or another player."
Sproles didn't see it that way, even saying that Goldson has a history of hurting players. "He tried to hurt me on the play," Sproles told NFL.com earlier this week, "but he didn't."
Goldson also drew the leagues ire in Week 1 during his team's 17-16 loss against the New York Jets, when he was fined $30,000 for violating safety rules again.
Godson wasn't the only person on the Bucs to hear from the league following that Week 1 game to the Jets. His teammate Lavonte David was also fined, though it was a much less prohibitive price.
David's hit on Jets rookie quarterback Geno Smith while he was already out of bounds in Week 1 allowed Nick Folk to kick a game-winning field goal to lead the Jets to a victory with just seven seconds left in a game that Tampa Bay had in hand up until that point. To add salt to the wounds of defeat, David was fined $7,875 dollars for his late hit on Smith. His punishment was less severe than Goldson's, though his penalty did cost his team a win.
Members of the Jets offensive line got into some trouble of their own during the team's Week 2 13-10 loss in New England against their division rival Patriots last Thursday. It all began when Jets center Nick Mangold came over to tackle Patriots cornerback Aqib Talib following Talib's secod interception of the game which sealed a victory for the Pats.
Talib was near the sidelines but hadn't yet gone out of bounds and as Mangold went through the air to tackle him near the Patriots sideline, the players on the Pats bench got upset and it turned into a war of words that escalated into physicality.
When the skirmish broke out, D'Brickashaw Ferguson and Willie Colon both got ejected, Ferguson for throwing punches at New England players and Colon for putting his hands on an official.
Mangold defended the play after the game, saying it was a "legal tackle." Ferguson was fined $15,000 while Colon received a severe $35,000 penalty for putting his hands on an NFL official. Mangold's fine has yet to be revealed.
In another example of safety violations, Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews was fined $15,000 for a hit he threw on 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick in the two teams' Week 1 meeting that saw San Francisco come out on top 34-28 at home.
Matthews received a flag for nailing the quarterback with a hit well after he went out of bounds, a violation of the league's rules. Matthews had already upset 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh with his talks of coming at the 49ers hard and hitting Kaepernick in particular to stop him from beating them like he did in last year's playoffs, and the hit only upset Harbaugh more.
"That certainly was a cheap shot," the San Francisco 49ers coach told ESPN the day after the game. "Launching, clotheslining to the neck/head area. That was a bad play."
Matthews joked that he wasn't a dirty player and was "awesome." "I'm an awesome player," Matthews told NFL.com after the game. "I'm not a dirty player."I think my resume's pretty good right now, I think we're doing all right."
The hit also led to 49ers guard Alex Boone saying he wanted to punch Matthews in the face.
When asked what he would do if he were in the league's position of fining or suspending Matthews, Boone voted for neither. "Probably punch him in the face," Boone said via CSNBayArea.com. "I don't want his money."
In other fines involving the Packers, Washington Redskins safety Brandon Meriweather was suspended $42,000 for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Packers running back Eddie Lacy in Green Bay's Week 2 38-20 victory.
A levy in the same amount was handed down to Tennessee Titans safety Bernard Pollard for a hit he doled out to Houston Texans receiver Andre Johnson that left him concussed in the fourth quarter of Houston's 30-24 Week 2 overtime victory. Pollard took to Twitter to vent his frustrations.
"So @nfl said I did "everything right" but 42k later I still get fined. Wow! It's called football but they want 2 hand touch," Pollard tweeted.
These infractions are just a handful of what has occurred on the football field through the first two weeks. If the dangerous hits, suspensions and fines from the league through the first two weeks are any indication, then when things get going in Week 3, there could be a few more manila envelopes making their way to different players' lockers when the heat of the game takes its toll and causes them to break the rules.
© Copyright 2024 Sports World News, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
