Report: Aaron Rodgers fined nearly $10K for facemask penalty before Alford's flop
The Packers quarterback hasn't had a great week
By
Will Brinson
•
1 min read
It's been a rough week for Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and it only got rougher when the NFL decided to fine him nearly $10,000 for a facemask penalty in the NFC Championship Game.
Rodgers was fined $9,1115 by the league, according to Rob Demovsky of ESPN.
On the play in question, Rodgers tried to keep Falcons cornerback Robert Alford from tackling him, and his hands ended up going to Alford's face.
After the play, Alford pulled off a Vlade Divac-level flop when Rodgers got too close to him as the pair dusted up a bit on the sideline.
This is an all-time flop pic.twitter.com/NwESElSN9Y
— SI Extra Mustard (@SI_ExtraMustard) January 22, 2017
Rodgers didn't think he deserved the flag, so he almost certainly doesn't think he deserves the fine.
"I went for the stiff-arm, and I'm not a stiff-arm connoisseur," Rodgers said after the game. "My thumb slipped through his facemask, his helmet was on loosely, and his helmet came off."
Rodgers also pointed out that the refs in the game picked up a flag when Alford attempted to tackle him as he was sliding earlier.
"I just told the ref, 'You know, he picked up the flag when they looked at the JumboTron when I scrambled and did kind of a weird in-between forward and front slide and the guy hit me in the head, and they picked up that penalty [flag],'" Rodgers said after the game. "So I just said, 'Why don't you look up at the JumboTron and pick up this penalty?' Because it obviously wasn't an excessive blow to the head there deserving of a 15-yard penalty, in my opinion."
Alford wasn't fined for the tackle on the play either, so the NFL was on the same page.
Rodgers said, via Demovsky, that the flag on the facemask was the first time he's ever been flagged for something other than delay of game. (We're not going to dig through his penalty history, but surely he's been hit for intentional grounding at some point.)
It's hard to blame the Packers quarterback for being mad, either, because a closer examination of the play shows that his facemask was grabbed by Alford as well.
The Packers would end up scoring anyway (and thereby hitting over the huge total in this game), so it ultimately didn't matter in terms of field position.
But it certainly matters to Rodgers' wallet now that he's been hit up by the NFL.
