Filed under: Football
If you didn't see it on the highlight reels, Houston Texans' wide receiver Andre Johnson and Tennessee Titans cornerback Cortland Finnegan got in to a heated brawl with each other on Sunday in the fourth quarter. It appeared that Finnegan was a bit frustrated at the 20-0 shutout the Texans was handing them. Finnegan jabbed Johnson in the face and Johnson responded by ripping Finnegan's helmet off and landing a couple of punches.
"He kept doing little things, and I told him, Just because you're frustrated, you need to stop what you're doing," Johnson said after the game on Sunday. "I guess he thought it was funny."
"Did I want it to escalate into that? Absolutely not," Finnegan said Monday on his Nashville radio show. "The only thing that upsets me ... if you reverse that and it's me, I'm not at the radio show. I'm sulking because I got a game suspension. But you twist it and it's because it's me."
Regardless of who the players think is at fault, Roger Goodell brought down the hammer, but it didn't hit as hard as people expected. Neither player was suspended, but they were fined $25,000 each for the slugfest.
"That's something I have been thinking about ever since the incident happened," Johnson told the Associated Press, after the punishment came down. "I'm happy that I'm not suspended. At the same time, I'm not happy about my actions."
"That's something I have been thinking about ever since the incident happened," Johnson told the Associated Press, after the punishment came down. "I'm happy that I'm not suspended. At the same time, I'm not happy about my actions."
While Johnson is happy to pay the fine and be able to play again next week, Finnegan is upset because he believes he shouldn't be fined at all. He will be appealing the decision:
"I didn't throw a punch. It's not a fineable offense," Finnegan told TitanInsider. "There's nothing I did that I felt like was a fineable offense. Maybe a flag for quick-jamming him and hitting him in the face mask. But there's no way that I thought that that would ever be a suspension."
Check out video of the fight below: