It looks like the National Football League didn’t have the guts to make good on its threat.
Just one day after threatening to suspend players for making helmet-to-helmet hits, on Tuesday the league instead just fined the three players who wreaked havoc in games over the weekend, when several injuries took place.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/sports/football/20hits.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
The NFL’s logic is that it wants to give teams and players “fair warning” that it plans to really crack down on brain-injuring helmet-to-helmet hits and safety-rule violations. Th NFL said that on Wednesday it planned to tell coaches, players and teams that the next punishments it metes out will be much worse, and could include suspensions.
Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison was fined $75,000 for helmet-to-helmet hits that injured two Cleveland Browns players, putting them out of the game.
New England Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather, who “launched himself into Baltimore Ravens tight end Todd Heap,” according to The New York Times, was fined $50,000 by the NFL.
Finally, Atlanta Falcon quarterback Dunta Robinson was fined $50,000 for hitting Philadephia Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson so hard that they both sustained concussions.
The Times reported that in a letter to all three fined players Ray Anderson, the NFL’s senior vice president of football operations, wrote that “future offenses will result in an escalation of fines up to and including suspensions.”
I’ll believe it when I see it. On Monday Anderson had conceded that suspensions, not fines, would be the real deterrent to make players stop helmet-to-helmet hits. Then the league only fines the players anyway.
