Friday is the day when the NFL typically makes available fine information arising from the preceding Sunday. Regarding the question of whether the NFL has fined Steelers receiver Antonio Brown for wearing a pink mouthpiece on Sunday against the Bengals, it’s Friday, but the NFL doesn’t have an answer on whether Brown has been fined.
“I’ve inquired about Brown, but do not yet have an answer and not today (sometimes the timing of uniform fines differs from other on-field discipline),” an NFL spokesman told PFT in response to the question of whether Brown was fined.
The key word is “sometimes.” Last week, it was known before Friday that Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams had been fined for putting a personal message on his eye black, and it was known that Steelers cornerback William Gay was fined for wearing purple shoes as a domestic violence awareness gesture.
Those fines weren’t announced by the league on Friday; they were disclosed by the players during the week, which means the fines were known on Friday. In Brown’s case, it’s possible that the NFL doesn’t want to acknowledge that a fine was imposed in order to avoid criticism for fining Brown for doing something in Week 8 that he could have done in Week Four, Five, Six, and Seven.
It’s also possible that the NFL doesn’t want to say Brown wasn’t fined, since that could be used by other players as a green light to move forward with all sorts of gear with non-conforming colors.
Either way, it’s apparent the NFL is trying to manage this one in a way that allows the league to duck criticism while also averting a full-blown uniform-code mutiny.
