During the Pittsburgh Steelers Week 2 match up against the Cleveland Browns on Monday Night Football, there were a ton of actions that could have resulted in fines. The main ones being the two face mask penalties committed by Browns quarterback, Deshaun Watson, and him intentionally showing one of the officials. However, Watson has faced no league punishment for these actions, while Steelers running back Jaylen Warren just received a hefty fine for an innocent football play that didn't even result in a penalty.
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Steelers 2022 Training Camp Star RB Jaylen Warren.
Steelers' Warren Receives Large Fine From The NFL
Warren received a fine on a play where he caught a pass from Kenny Pickett and ran for a 26-yard gain while picking up a first down. At the end of the play while finishing his run, he lowered his shoulder to try and pick up a few extra yards before being forced out of bounds. The NFL has fined Warren for this play a total of $48,333 with reasoning being an illegal use of his helmet. The fine was originally reported by Tom Pelissero.
The play was completely harmless, as there were no injuries in result of Warren's actions and no flags were thrown on the play. Warren cannot be happy when he received the official notice from the league.
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Pittsburgh Steelers Running Back Jaylen Warren (30) during a regular season game against the Cleveland Browns on Thurs., Sept. 22 at Cleveland, OH.
This fine may not be a big deal for many players in the NFL, but since Warren was an undrafted free agent in 2022, he is not on a glamorous contract. He is set to make only $874,000 for the 2023 season, so the large fine is a good portion of his yearly salary. The NFL should not be able to fine players on such low value contracts for such a high amount, especially if the play didn't result in a penalty initially and no harm was done to any of the opposing players. Warren will be going through an approval process.
We are obviously appealing https://t.co/7ue7vBRC3G
— David Canter (@davidcanter) September 23, 2023
There are 18 weeks in the NFL season, and if you divide Warren's yearly salary by the amount of the fine it will be found that the amount he was fined for is roughly his entire game check for the Week 2 contest. The NFL should not be able to fine any player the amount of their game check just for one play, no matter how high the value of the player's contract is.
Jordan Schofield / SteelerNation (Twitter: @JSKO_PHOTO)
Steelers running back Jaylen Warren's quick burst has led some people to wonder if he would be a better starting option over Najee Harris.
If any player should have been fined for their actions in the Week 2 match up, it should have be Watson. He committed two face mask personal fouls as a quarterback, which is unheard of. Two fouls like that at the college level would get a player thrown out of the game, and at the NFL level, it should at least result in a hefty fine especially for a player on a fully guaranteed contract.
Watson had many malicious acts in Week 2. One included shoving an official after one of his personal fouls and this should have resulted in him being ejected from the game. NFL rules state that any unwelcome contact with an official should result in an ejection, so it is unclear why he was allowed to stay in the game. If he is not being fined for the face mask penalties, then he should be getting fined for the violent contact he made with an official. However, the NFL made a statement saying that he will not be fined for basically attacking an official since the officials did not think it was worthy of him receiving a penalty.
Once again, the NFL decides not to give Watson a sufficient punishment, yet they decide to fine an undrafted player for nearly his entire game check for a play that resulted in no penalty. It simply makes no sense.
What do you think of Warren being fined? Let us know in the comments below!
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