NFL Update: No suspension for Richard Seymour
It could have been a lot worse for Oakland Raiders’ defensive lineman. He didn’t entirely escape disciplinary action but no one would argue that he got off relatively easy. On Sunday, Seymour knocked out Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback with a punch to the
face knocking down Ben Roethlisberger.
The league has handed Seymour a $25,000 fine for the shot. He was immediately ejected from the game and there was good reason to believe that he would be suspended. Considering the fact that Seymour earns $13 million a season, the $25,000 fine is just peanuts
and tantamount to not being penalized at all considering his infraction.
Tension is high during every game in the NFL. However on Sunday, the Raiders were particularly distressed because of the way the game was panning out against them. It wasn’t just that the Raiders were being beaten. That much was expected for 5-5 Oakland
Raiders when they faced 7-3 Pittsburgh Steelers. However, Sunday was a lot worse for Oakland than could have been expected. Pittsburgh won the game 35 points against just 3. In the middle of all that Roethlisberger scored a touchdown and was rushing up at
Seymour from behind, well not really at him but in his general direction. At that time, Seymour turned around and landed one on Roethlisberger’s face.
Seymour said that he felt he let his teammates down with the hit. “It was a lot of ongoing, and you're out there to protect yourself. It's still no excuse. I'm not sure exactly what happened on the play. I just turned around, and he just ran up on me quick.
It was just natural reaction.” Roethlisberger said something as he was approaching Seymour. Asked if that was what provoked Seymour, the lineman did not confirm. “I'm not sure why he ran up on me.” Roethlisberger confirmed that he said nothing to provoke Seymour,
in fact he did not even address him. According to the quarterback, all he said was ‘let’s get ready for the extra point.’
Whatever his reason, the bottom line is that Seymour hit Roethlisberger in the face and there can be no excuse for it. It wasn’t the first for Seymour either. Last year, Seymour was similarly ejected from the game for hitting Jerome Harrison. That makes
him a ‘repeat offender’ and added to speculations that the league would suspend him. That was after all the league’s excuse for giving Roethlisberger’s teammate, James Harrison a $75,000 dollar fine for a hit that did not even draw a penalty. Obviously, Harrison
wasn’t too happy with neither that decision nor this one.
Harrison said that he didn’t see why Seymour was not suspended. “They're trying to suspend guys for hits when that's within the whistles, some hits that guys can't even stop from doing,” Harrison said adding that those hits that the NFL is cracking down
on so hard are not deliberate. He suggested that the penalty on a player who ‘blatantly, outside the play’ punched another player while he was trying to celebrate with his teammates should be nothing but a suspension.
The punch to the face wasn’t too hard. Seymour is a strong athlete and he could have seriously hurt Roethlisberger but that just wasn’t the intent. It was bad sportsmanship on Seymour’s part. I can see why the league would take strict action against a play
that might end up injuring a player, even end his career. But I struggle to grasp the rationale behind letting Seymour off the hook for his stunt. Even if a suspension would be too much, the league certainly could have at least given him a serious fine. The
$25,000 fine for conduct like that says just one thing, ‘go right ahead and punch players, we don’t really mind.’ Considering how NFL commissioner Roger Goodell can’t seem to stop talking about how strongly he feels about dirty plays on the field, cleaning
up behaviour like that should have been higher up on NFL’s priorities.
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