“Stealing Money” from Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown is what J.J. Watt accuses the NFL of.
The league announced on November 25 that St. Brown was fined $43,709 for a block had made in the team’s Week 11 win over the Chicago Bears. It was the largest fine handed out by the league that week, but drew considerable controversy as St. Brown made only light contact on the play.
Not long after the penalty was announced, Watt took to social media to blast the league for what he saw as “stealing” money from the Lions receiver.
NFL Accused of ‘Stealing’ From Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown
Watt linked to a video shared of St. Brown’s hit, noting that it was difficult for him to even find the infraction. As the NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero noted in the original post, the league is cracking down on players who lower their head to initiate contact with defenders.
“Once more, here we go… As a general rule of thumb, Watt wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, “We probably should not be taking $43,709 from someone if you have to watch the video multiple times to try figuring out which person did something wrong.” “This is a case of money theft.”
St. Brown also took to X to share his thoughts on the controversial fine, sharing Pelissero’s post and the caption: “Almost 5% of my salary. I’m hurting”
The fine was intended to convey the message that the league wants players to cease lowering their heads when making contact, as noted by Jeremy Reisman of SB Nation’s Pride of Detroit.
“Whether he’s being sarcastic or not, he’s actually telling the truth,” Reisman wrote. “His salary this year is $940,000, as he is only in the third year of his rookie contract. It also raises a bigger issue for players who might not receive significant extensions and end up playing their entire careers on cheap rookie contracts, even though St. Brown will eventually be compensated and this will only be a small portion of the total. These types of fines are not insignificant to those players.”
Lions Moving Ahead After Rough Thanksgiving Loss
The Lions are coming off a difficult loss to the Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving, falling behind early and failing to crawl back in the 29-22 loss.
After the game, Lions head coach Dan Campbell said the 8-3 Lions are looking ahead and not going into “panic mode” over the defeat to their divisional rival.
“It is easy to fall into a panic mode,” NFL.com reports that Campbell said to reporters. “I know what it looks like, and we’ve been good enough out there, but I’m not panicked. The guys we have are capable of playing well. After we clean up a little, we will still have six (games) left to play. And the fight is on now. I mean, they think these are going to be some cruise control. We’re going to have to fight and scratch and fight and claw for everything, man. We have to. That’s the type of team we are. That’s where we’re at.”
