Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
What a joke.
The NFL is not fining Jadeveon Clowney for his helmet-to-helmet hit that concussed Carson Wentz in last weekend’s Philadelphia Eagles versus Seattle Seahawks wild card game, according to a report from the Washington Post’s Mark Maske.
Officials declined to throw a flag on the play and then defended their decision after the game. Now the league is standing by the ruling on the field.
Pretty dumb, if you ask me. It’s clear that what Clowney did was not a normal football play. Hell, former NFL vice president of officiating Mike Pereira called the hit a “cheap shot.”
Just watch it again:
Wentz dives forward on this play against the Seahawks and takes a helmet-to-helmet shot to the back of the head from Clowney. There’s no call because refs said he didn’t give himself up. #Eagles
— Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) January 6, 2020
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/TbMFLHvVGZ
The NFL stood to benefit from penalizing Clowney’s hit. Their product suffered on Sunday evening when Wentz was taken out with a dangerous blow to the head just nine snaps into the game. One would think they’d be aiming to discourage defenders from taking out quarterbacks like this moving forward.
But hey, at least the league stood behind their refs! You know, the people that the fans really tune in to see.
Doug Pederson talked more about Clowney’s hit on Wentz earlier today with Angelo Cataldi on SportsRadio 94WIP.
CATALDI: The other big issue, this is more emotional to fans than what we’ve been discussing here, is the way the season ended for Carson Wentz. Could you share with the city your emotions about how it ended?
PEDERSON: Well, listen. I’m disappointed, like our fans our, like I think Carson is. And it’s unfortunate. It’s the part of our game that we know happens. We know these things do happen. Right or wrong, I’m not here to point the finger, I’m not here to point blame at anybody. It’s something we’re trying to continue to obviously educate our players, educate our officials, educate coaches, the entire league, to try to get these plays out of our league. I don’t necessarily agree with the hit, I think it was possibly should’ve been a penalty. But I can’t go back and change it. It doesn’t change anything about maybe where Carson was during the game. And it’s unfortunate it happened the way it happened. And that Carson couldn’t finish that football game.
CATALDI: Doug, I can tell you, we’ve done 20 hours with the fans this week. They feel cheated because Carson did so much to get you guys to the playoffs and then it was just torn away from him. Do you have that sense too, that the way it all played out was unfair?
PEDERSON: I don’t know about unfair. Listen, these are plays, as you guys know, we’re trying to get these plays out of our game. They’re unnecessary. It’s an unnecessary roughness. Should it have been penalized at the time? Yeah, it probably should have. But if it was or wasn’t, it doesn’t change the fact that Carson probably would’ve been out of the game because of the hit anyway. So it doesn’t change any of that. I am disappointed that Carson couldn’t finish our season, whether we had won that football game or not, that he couldn’t have been the guy who stood on the field at the end of the fourth quarter when the clock ticked to zero, that he wasn’t the guy. Because he had a tremendous, tremendous football season … how he led this team. And I can see the disappointment in the fans and kind of feel that emotion that they’re feeling. From that standpoint, I am disappointed that way.
CATALDI: Doug, [you’ve] said in the past when there was a call that was made or wasn’t made that you didn’t agree with, you would send a tape to the league offices. Did you do it in this case?
PEDERSON: Yeah. We always send these plays in, multiple plays every week. And send them into the league office for clarification.
CATALDI: The other thing that came out of this, Doug, was that people who are kind of on the fence about Carson said this is another example of him being prone to injury. Do you agree with that perspective?
PEDERSON: I don’t agree. This hit had nothing to do with … anything other than an unnecessary roughness hit. That’s what it was. It wasn’t a guy rolling up on his leg, or him scrambling — he was scrambling, but he wasn’t scrambling and then trying to take a shot. He was actually protecting himself by going down in this instance. So, I don’t necessarily think that he’s injury prone that way. He played really tough this season. Physically, and mentally. He batted through his own soreness and pain and different things throughout the year. So, I think this was a great year for him, physically, from that standpoint.
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