The Seattle Seahawks are coming off another tough loss, and to make matters worse, a couple of players have been fined for uncalled offenses against the Denver Broncos. In the case of Ty Okada, he got the unwanted daily double.
The starting safety received not one, but two fines for plays that happened inside of a minute of game time in the opening quarter. He was docked $6,361 for an illegal use of helmet while tackling Broncos wide receiver Jaylen Waddle. It certainly wasn’t that obvious watching
it in real time or even on replay. His second $6,361 fine for what the league deemed was a tripping attempt on Broncos running back RJ Harvey. Perhaps if Harvey had immediately gone down there would’ve been a penalty called live, but there was none.
Meanwhile, defensive end Mike Morris got his own fine ($6,808) for lowering his helmet illegally while doing a clean-up tackle on Troy Franklin.
It should be noted that lowering the helmet is not one of the infractions that the league has keyed in on as a suspension-worthy offense if it happens three times in a season.
Lastly, there was one Broncos player fined for a hit that came at a critical point in the contest. With under a minute left in regulation, Sam Darnold was drilled by Broncos linebacker Alex Singleton on a late rush. Darnold was noticeably slow to get up after taking a vicious hit, which didn’t result in a roughing the passer penalty. It did, however, prompt a $23,882 fine from the league for illegal helmet use. They almost never call these helmet penalties in-game, but I suppose this conceivably could’ve been called roughing the passer in the moment.
These fines can be appealed. If any of these fines is upheld then the players will lose that money from their next game check, otherwise they’ll be notified of a rescinding in case of a successful appeal.
