Austin Collie Injury: Is the NFL Fining Players for Effect, Not Intent?

If you watched any football last night, you undoubtedly saw the highlight and subsequent debates regarding the vicious hit Indianapolis wide receiver Austin Collie sustained against the Philadelphia Eagles.

In case you did miss it, here is a link to view it.

In this new age of the NFL, there will be a lot of interest to see if this hit results in a fine for Eagles defender Kurt Coleman.

On the one hand, no one can argue that there was not helmet-to-helmet contact between the two players. However, when analyzing the hit, you see that this wasn't nearly as malicious as some of the hits we saw three weeks ago that led to the ushering in of this new NFL hit policy.

This hit will undoubtedly spear debate between people that want to see a total crackdown on helmet-to-helmet hits and those that believe that football is a violent game that cannot be treated with kid gloves.

This hit in particular will also be discussed because it may very well finally shed light into the NFL's definition of what constitutes a fineable or suspension-worthy hit, since the league has not gone into specifics with the media or its fans.

I can appreciate how delicate of a situation this is with the league. The question is, how violent can the league make the game so that fans are happy, yet safe enough so that players won't sustain traumatic brain injuries that ruin their lives by the time they can earn Social Security checks?

The funny thing is, I'm usually one to support player safety. The last thing I want to see is tragedies like Rutgers player Eric LeGrand, who may very well be paralyzed.

However, players understand that there is a risk involved when they step onto a football field, just like NASCAR drivers know they'll be going 190 miles per hour inches from a wall, or a hockey player uses hard sticks while skating on razor-sharp blades. Football has preached violence ever since the sport's inception almost a century ago.

While I respect the necessity to police the players in terms of obvious head-to-head cheap shots, I fear this league could tilt the scale too far in the other direction if it's not careful. For the record, I don't believe the hit on Collie should deserve a fine, much less a suspension.

If you watch the play, Collie not only made a catch and a subsequent football move, but he was also beginning to fall when the helmet contact from Coleman laid him out.

After watching a high-definition, super slow-motion replay, it's easy to say, "Hey, Coleman should have gotten out of the way!" But I ask you to try stopping on a dime when running upwards of 15 to 20 miles per hour, especially since you've been taught for 15 years to hit that man hard and knock the ball out.

The collision was simply unavoidable and a product of incredibly strong and fast athletes colliding into one another. However, I fear that to prove a point, the NFL is going to fine Coleman upwards of $50,000.

In essence, the NFL will fine him for effect.

This situation leads me to another issue I have with the league. Not only do I question the NFL regarding many of these hits, but I question their motives and if the league is changing its image only to gain popular support for extending its season to 18 games.

If this were the reasoning for the crackdown on hits, it would be unforgivable.  Sadly, I have enough cynicism in me to believe it's true. After all, why now of all times would the league start cracking down on a type of hit that's been around for years, not to mention a type of hit they've profited off of?

I honestly can envision a year from now the headlines of "since player safety is so much better than the 2010 season, the league can now proudly announce the extension of their regular season to 18 games." To talk about how the league is so worried about the health of its players while talking about extending a season and thus putting its employees at further risk screams hypocrisy.

But this is the world we now live in in the NFL.  

I often agree with what Commissioner Roger Goodell is doing and applaud his efforts to clean up the image of his league. But if he starts fining players for any fringe helmet-to-helmet hit, then that is something I will vehemently speak out against.

In the end, if a player is leading with his helmet and his intention is clearly to try to injure an opponent, then I say fine him to the moon! Fine him, suspend him and put him on notice. Players like Brandon Meriweather should have fines levied against them.  

But for Coleman and other defenders who simply cannot avoid the contact, we need to make exceptions, not examples.