Week 11 Score Update, and TWO Player Safety Suspensions to Report

Well, the NFL finally may be hearing a little of the heat...

As of Sunday, we basically figured that Erik Walden of the Colts would be only stiffly fined for his headbutt of Tennessee's Delanie Walker.

Well, Monday, the NFL shocked us:

• Indianapolis Colts:  Erik Walden, SUSPENDED ONE GAME for the headbutt.  The rationale, after the Monday war-room meeting, was that Walden should've been ejected from the contest (DUH!!!), and they will carry that over into a one-game suspension.

And, as Gomez would say in The Addams Family Pinball, "And that's not all!"

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers:  Dashon Goldson, AGAIN.  THREE-TIME LOSER, his second trip to Supplemental, and the second attempt at SUSPENDED ONE GAME for a helmet-to-helmet on Atlanta's Roddy White.

Under the Remittance Policy, each of these actions costs $50,000 against the team number.  Since the Buccaneers are well into Level 3, they are fined that $50,000.  As of right now, the Buccaneers (thanks to Goldson almost single-handedly putting them into Level 3:  $30,000 in Week 1, $50,000 counted against the number when he was fined $100,000 in Week 2, and another $50,000 against the number here for that part of his $264,705 he will lose) are the highest number on the board at $257,500 against the number, a full one hundred thousand dollars over the limit -- six weeks to go.
 
...unless he appeals again and wins.  Of course, if he were to, he'd probably be damn near playing for free anyway.

I want to give you an idea of how much a fucking joke these fines are.  You realize that Goldson, through 12 weeks (because he will sit Week 12 vs. Detroit -- Good God, the two dirtiest teams in the league getting it on), will have lost $394,705, been at least threatened with suspension twice...

The suspension will cost Walden over $175,000 himself.

I would not be surprised at all if Indianapolis almost goes Level 2 on this game single-handedly -- that one sequence in the second quarter culminating in the headbutt.

And, once again, some more catchup:

Week 10:

• Philadelphia Eagles:  Najee Goode, $10,000 for Roughing the Passer
• Another for Cincinnati:  Chris Crocker:  $7,875 for a Face Mask
• There are now four teams effectively (at least to my research) one fine away from Level 2.

Week 11 Score Update:

49 2/3 points/game last week.
Season per game average is 46.91, almost a full point past last year's number.