NFL cracking down hard on violent, dangerous hits

FLOWERY BRANCH --- There wasn't much attention paid to Cincinnati quarterback Carson Palmer when he predicted that a NFL player was going to get killed. In a preseason roundtable discussion with Sports Illustrated, Palmer wasn't talking about someone getting shot in a robbery or drive-by shooting. He was talking about it happening on the Football field. Over the past two weeks, the league has doled out more than $58,000 in fines for flagrant fouls on vicious hits. Carolina cornerback Dante Wesley drew the ire of the league office for a hit Sunday on Tampa Bay return man Clifton Smith. He launched himself at Smith, causing him to suffer a concussion and an injured throat. Wesley was suspended by Ray Anderson, the NFL's executive vice president of Football operations and a former Falcons executive, for one game without pay and will lose $38,750 in pay for what the league called a flagrant violation of player-safety rules. In a letter to Wesley, Anderson wrote, "The playing rules [Rule 10, Section 1, Article 1] specifically provide that a member of the kicking team is prohibited from interfering with a receiver attempting to catch an airborne kick ... by striking your defenseless opponent in the head and neck area, you committed an unnecessary and unnecessarily dangerous act that is specifically prohibited by the rules." Falcons' president Rich McKay is the co-chair of the league's competition committee, which has placed an emphasis on player safety with several recent rules changes. "Until the season is concluded, it is hard to compare one season to another with respect to flagrant fouls and/or fines," McKay said. "Traditionally the number of fines from year to year does not seem to change dramatically." For players making millions of dollars, the fine amounts appear low to some. "The purpose of the fine system is to deter such action and where we really see it being an effective deterrent is in the repeat offenders," McKay said. "You very rarely see repeat offenders in the fine categories. The system has served the [NFL] pretty well through the years; although, as player compensation has continued to rise there will always be the issue as to whether the fine is of a sufficient amount?" Wesley's hit did not go over well with some players. "That was way over the top," Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez said of Wesley's hit. "That's inexcusable. There is no place for that. That looked ridiculous. You can really hurt somebody like that." Wesley's hit started a brawl as both benches cleared. He was penalized for the play and ejected from the game. Wesley accepted his suspension, but maintained that his flagrant hit was not intentional. "I wasn't out there to deliberately hurt anybody," Wesley told the Charlotte Observer. "I was just out there to make a play. But if that's what they have to do, I have to be a man and accept it, deal with it and not let it happen again." In the previous week, Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis was fined $25,000 for two hits he made on Cincinnati wide receiver Chad Ochocinco. The Wesley and Lewis hits and fines, paled next to the $10,000 fine Vikings quarterback Brett Favre got for an illegal crackback block on Houston safety Eugene Wilson and the $12,000 Flozell Adams of the Cowboys received for kicking two New York Giants players. While Wesley has accepted his penalty, Lewis plans to appeal his fine. The money collected from fines is donated to charity. "It seems like the NFL is really concerned for player safety," Gonzalez said. "For me, some of [the calls] are definitely questionable. Some of them are just blatantly wrong." Players and coaches openly acknowledge that the game is violent. In fact, that draws many of the players to the game. "I like the physical part of the game," Falcons linebacker Mike Peterson said. "That's what separates this game from a lot of the other games, the physical part of it. I hope they don't continue to take that part away from the game." Peterson, a thunderous hitter in his own right, has watched the league's crackdown closely. "You've got to know that when you strap it up and go between those lines that this is a physical game," Peterson said. "This is not basketball or baseball. We are paid to hit and there are going to be some hits the kids might not want to see, the parents might not want to see, but this is what we signed up for." Falcons coach Mike Smith encourages his players to play a physical brand of Football, but he knows there is a fine line between legal hits and illegal hits, between the acceptable and the unacceptable. "We always talk about being right on that line," Smith said. "We've had two personal-foul penalties in the first five games, but I don't think anything that we've done has been flagrant." Defensive players see the crackdown as taking away the biggest weapon, their striking ability. "There is no speed limit for how fast they can run a route on me or how deep they can throw the ball," Peterson said. "They can run as fast as they want and throw the ball as deep as they want. Now, don't tell me I can't hit you as hard as I want." Next for Falcons Who: at Cowboys When: 4:15 p.m. Sunday TV; radio: Fox; 92.9