Sideline scuffle costs Smith. (Photo courtesy of AJC)
While it doesn’t come as a surprise that the league decided to take disciplinary action following last week’s sideline fracas during the Falcons/Redskins game I’ve got some issues with the decision. I’ll admit that I don’t know all the facts, but to the common observer there are a few discrepancies…
For starters: Mike Smith gets fined 15K while DeAngelo Hall walks away scott free. The league should hold its coaches, whom are technically responsible for keeping their players well behaved to a higher standard, so I get the fine of Smith, and I even get that it was a larger sum than the two players who were actually fined in the incident. But it doesn’t make sense to me how Hall, who has a history of ‘misbehavior’ and seemed to be just as heated/involved walks away clean. Hall, of course, knew it all along – according to his twitter account he’s been keeping his nose clean and staying out of trouble.
Perhaps more troubling: with the admission that coaches need to be held to a higher standard the league is continuing to let Tom Cable get away without discipline, despite the fact that while Smith may have said some hurtful things, he didn’t actually break someone’s jaw (nor was he accused of abusing women). Smith is fined immediately, while they hum and haw over disciplining Cable from an incident months ago. I guess the NFL doesn’t play by ’sticks and stones’ rules, which is funny because you’ll recall they let Jerry Jones get away with my other favourite school yard mantra ‘do over’ when deciding how to deal with a punt that hits the big screen.