One of the dirtiest plays in the NFL this season drew a surprisingly light fine from the NFL.
Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs was fined only $8,268 for his shot to the back of running back LeGarrette Blount’s legs during Sunday night’s loss to the Steelers.
The official word from the NFL is that Suggs’s fine was “for unnecessary roughness, striking opponent late whose forward progress has been stopped.” But that description, while factually accurate, doesn’t fully describe just how nasty Suggs’s hit was. A hard hit to the back of the legs of a player who’s stuck in the middle of a scrum can cause a serious injury.
Blount was OK, but that’s still a shockingly small fine in a league that hands down bigger fines than that for wearing the wrong socks or the wrong headphones, as well as bigger fines than that for penalties like roughing the passer and hits on defenseless receivers.
Blount called Suggs “a dirty player” after the game. If the NFL wants Suggs to clean up his act, it should have handed him a fine that amounts to more than pocket change for a player who has made tens of millions of dollars in his career.
