Fines Getting Out Of Hand?
by Sam Monson
19/11/2008
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made it known when he came to power that his primary task would be to clean up the image of the league, to try and stamp out the behaviour that he believed was giving the NFL a bad name and a bad image in the modern world (which of course could impact those juicy multi-billion dollar TV deals that we all know and love).
Suspensions began to be handed down left and right. Serial offenders (and clear fools) like the Bengals' Chris Henry and the Cowboys' (formerly the Titans') Pac-Man Jones found themselves sitting at home for a substantial period of time as they were cast out of the league for their unruly behaviour.
 Now some already began to bristle at this draconian rule from Goodell, but I for one salute the man for that stance. The players had gone too far, and there was a clear section of thuggish players that should have no place in the league, whatever football talent they possess. Regardless of whether Pac-Man Jones was ever actually convicted of anything, his presence at a strip-club and the entourage of people he brings with him resulted in a man no-longer being able to walk.
Goodell was dead right when he talked about players being aware enough not to put themselves in those situations, whether they are actually to blame for the imminent outcome or not.
The problem I have with Roger Goodell's rule is the fining system that seems to have exploded this year. I don't think there are too many people who disagree in principle with the idea that we need to protect the players, the most valuable assets of the NFL, or that QBs should be kept upright whenever possible, these are the players we all pay to see, but when did that become issuing $15,000 fines for facemask penalties?
The NFL must be unique in sports in being the only league where you can find yourself lighter in the wallet after committing a simple foul during the game. Yes Roy Keane incurred a fine when he went out to maliciously snap a man's leg during a game, but if Roy Keane had been hit with a £5,000 fine every time he committed a foul, or even every time he picked up a yellow card – the man would have exploded in the kind of fire and brimstone hell-fire not seen since Biblical times!
The list, and price, of these fines, seems ever increasing. Chad Greenway and Deuce Lutui have been fined for simple facemask penalties. Jared Allen was fined $50,000 for a pair of hits on Houston QB, Matt Schaub. Allen, the NFL's best paid Defensive player, might be well able to absorb that kind of hit to the wallet, but how about the Jets' Eric Smith, who was fined the same $50,000, and suspended for a game, after a scary collision with Anquan Boldin..?
This is Smith's 3rd season in the NFL, after being selected in the 3rd round (97th overall) in the 2006 Draft. With the suspension costing Smith a game-cheque, he will be losing a grand total of $76,000 for that hit, one that knocked him unconscious incidentally. That's a serious hit to the man's wage. Smith has a base salary this season of $445,000, and he's losing $76,000 of it over one hit in one game. If he has another hit or two – and the way they're going they don't even need to be particularly harsh ones, he could be losing a massive percentage of his wages.
In a game that already penalises its players later in life for playing the game with a world of neverending medical problems, the league in its current state is trying to penalise its players for playing hard by hitting them financially – removing the one thing that makes the act of playing football rationally worth-while.
Troy Polamalu recently commented that the NFL was becoming a pansy league with the way it was trying to stamp out on hits with the fines, and he has a point.
I don't think anybody here is saying that we should encourage dirty, late, illegal hits, and there is a certain brand of hit that probably merits a fine, just as there was a certain line that Roy Keane crossed when he passed up making tackles for snapping leg bones, but that is a world away from fining guys thousands of dollars for a penalty which they were already penalised for during the game, hurting their team in the process.
Since Chad Greenway was fined for a facemask that wasn't called, should the official get fined for missing the call? How about the guy that fined Justin Tuck before Roger Goodell actually looked at the incident and rescinded the fine, should we be deducting half that man's weekly wage for the error?
The NFL is a violent game, and these guys are putting their bodies on the line every week to go out there and give everything they have to win games (obviously unless they're Lions or Rams…), it's time we let them play football and accept that they're going to make mistakes sometimes.
Anybody who steps over the line deserves his fine or suspension, but at the moment it looks like somebody has moved that line to a strange place.
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