League appears to mete out punishments with little rhyme or reason
believe the league set a precedent Tuesday with its one-game suspensions of Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster (”Jo-Jo” if you go with Jon Gruden’s pronunciation) and Bengals safety George Iloka.
But wait! The NFL has upheld Iloka’s appeal. He’ll only be fined. Next thing you know, they’ll give Rob Gronkowski the keys to the league office and a year’s supply of beer that he can shotgun and spike. What’s going on here? Two things seem clear:
•The league must have felt like it had to react to all the moralizing over the SteelersBengals game Sunday night.
• Smith-Schuster wasn’t suspended so much for his hit on Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict as for standing over him.
So you get suspended for taunting now?
Or is it borderline hit + taunt = suspension?
If so, it’ll be interesting to monitor that equation moving forward.
If I’m the NFL, I’m way more concerned about situations like the one that developed between Bengals receiver A.J. Green and Jacksonville cornerback Jalen Ramsey a few weeks back.
Green attacked Ramsey, who’d shoved him to the turf after the whistle. Green choked him, then threw punches. After both players were ejected, Ramsey, according to ESPN, tried to go after Green in the Bengals locker room but was prevented from doing so by stadium security.
That seems rather unsportsmanlike, if sportsmanship is your major concern.
Neither player was suspended.
On the other hand, Denver cornerback Aqib Talib and Oakland receiver Michael Crabtree were initially slapped with two games apiece for their all-out brawl, then had their suspensions reduced to one game — same as Smith-Schuster’s.
Now look at Smith-Schuster’s hit compared to, say, Green Bay’s Richard Rodgers cracking back on Steelers safety Sean Davis and hitting him in the helmet two games ago. Rodgers was fined $24,309. He was not suspended.
Would he have been suspended if he’d briefly stood over Davis? Is that the criterion now? Then there’s Gronkowski — Gronk, the fun-loving New England Patriots tight end— who went full WWE on Sunday in Buffalo, coming off the ropes with a flying elbow, post-whistle, that concussed Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White.
He got one game, same as Smith-Schuster. Which is convenient, as it’ll keep Gronk eligible for the AFC game of the year in two weeks at Heinz Field.
“I don’t like to compare players or suspensions, but you look at what Gronk did and what JuJu did, and they get the same suspensions,” said Ben Roethlisberger (Gruden often still says, “Roth-ul-berger”) on Wednesday morning in the locker room. “I don’t know that that’s necessarily fair.”
To the contrary, it’s blatantly unfair. A suspension for Iloka would have been the same (although Iloka is a repeat offender, having been fined for cracking Heath Miller in the skull two years ago).
Both made football plays, illegal but within the realm of the game. Both merited flags and fines, no more.
The league, in a statement from discipline czar Jon Runyan (who, richly, was one of the dirtiest players in the league when he played) highlighted the taunting as a key partof the rationale for SmithSchuster’s suspension.
“Is that the precedent now?” Roethlisberger asked sarcastically of both plays (Smith-Schuster’s and Iloka’s). “You never really know in this league.” No, you certainly don’t. And here is yet another last-minute development that makes no sense: NFL rep Troy Vincent, in a conference call with reporters, and as reported by Will Graves of The Associated Press, said taunting was not a factor in suspending Smith-Schuster.
“It was the act of” the hit, Vincent said. Which would appear to be in direct contradiction to Runyan’s “letter” to Smith-Schuster.
The beat goes on.