Houston Texans’s Andre Johnson and Tennessee Titans’ Cortland Finnegan fined but not suspended
The league has fined, Houston Texans’ wide receiver Andre Johnson and Tennessee Titans’ cornerback Cortland Finnegan $25,000 each.
The fine comes as a disciplinary measure for a brawl these two were engaged in on Sunday during the Titans vs Texans game. The Texans shot out Tennessee in the game.
In the fourth quarter, the two players engaged each other in a shoving competition, and almost threw punches but players from both sides intervened before anything drastic happened. In the next play, Finnegan was covering Johnson again and this time they
did not hesitate. They wanted to throw punches at each other and that is exactly what they did.
Both were ejected from the game for the fight.
After the game Johnson apologized for his behaviour. He said that Finnegan’s antics over the course of the game eventually made him lose his temper. “I wish that I could take back what happened, but I can't”, Johnson said. Finnegan declined to comment on
Sunday.
There was speculation that the two could be suspended. The league has recently taken a harsh stance on unsportsmanlike conduct. Getting into a fight with a player from the other team is about as unsportsmanlike conduct as you would ever see on the field.
“I'm happy that I'm not suspended, but at the same time, I'm not happy about my actions”, Johnson said. The league has been handing out heavy fines and threatened suspensions to clamp down on misconduct on the field. The $25,000 fine put into perspective
of the $40,000 fine on Philadelphia’s Will Witherspoon or the $75,000 on Pittsburgh James Harrison, shows that Finnegan and Johnson got off easy.
However, Finnegan disagrees and plans to appeal the fine. He said that Johnson ‘snapped’ and had been doing a lot of trash talking. Finnegan said that he did not expect a suspension or considered his behaviour inappropriate enough for the league to penalize
him. “Maybe a flag for quick jamming him and hitting him in the facemask. But there's no way that I thought that that would ever be a suspension”, Finnegan said.
Finnegan jokingly said that he had it coming and that he would have let himself have it if he was in Andre Johnsons’ place. The two players have a history of not liking each other. They brawled similarly last season, Johnson was fined on that occasion for
his part in the scuffle.
Titans Coach Jeff Fisher said that he was disappointed by the incident. “It's not good for our game, and I'm just disappointed that that type of thing happens on the playing field”. In Finnegan’s defence, Fisher said that even during the altercation Finnegan
didn’t fight back and kept his composure to make sure he didn’t hurt the football team.
That is Fisher’s opinion. It really didn’t look like Finnegan was in control, more like he got a beating he couldn’t do anything about.
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