First there was Oakland Raider Richard Seymour's punch to the head of Pittsburgh Steeler Ben Roethlisberger, and now this. Before you know it, the "No Fun League" will be turning into a veritable day at the amusement park.
Obviously brawls are fun to watch, but the NFL is walking the line of some pretty dangerous territory, refusing to come down hard on Tennessee Titans cornerback Cortland Finnegan and Houston Texan wide-receiver Andre Johnson for their fight on Sunday. Each got fined $25,000 for their actions on Monday night (as did Seymour for his attack on Roethlisberger last week) and will not get suspended, meaning the NFL is one step closer to officially charging players $25,000 for taking liberties on opposing players they don't like that much.
Considering Johnson signed a seven-year, $62.5-million deal in August, it may actually sound like a pretty good deal, losing some mere pocket change (relatively speaking) in order to get even with someone that has been a stick in his craw for a while now. Hell, Finnegan, widely known as one of the biggest pests in the league, should take this whole experience as an unofficial warning to keep his shenanigans to a minimum, lest he's actually hoping for a long line of opposing teammates looking for revenge to form every game.
Still, if this is commissioner Roger Goodell's attempt at cleaning up the league, maybe he should take a more active approach, actually suspend the initial transgression so as not to risk trends developing and then snowballing. If he lets players police themselves, the end-result may be attractive, but the lead-up will be a war with bodies dropping every which way. We are talking about people that concuss others and break limbs for a living within the game's actual rules. Take those out of the picture, and all you have left is a no-holds-barred free-for-all akin to the UFC. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but, mixed with football, you get the XFL. And that's very bad.
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