Miami Dolphins FB Alec Ingold to appeal fine for unnecessary roughness
Miami Dolphins FB Alec Ingold signed a contract extension just a few weeks ago for three years worth up to $17.2 million. It seems the league wants to take a little bit of that back, and it's hard to understand why. The league announced that Ingold was fined $14,333 for unnecessary roughness from Miami's 36-34 win […]
Miami Dolphins FB Alec Ingold signed a contract extension just a few weeks ago for three years worth up to $17.2 million. It seems the league wants to take a little bit of that back, and it's hard to understand why.
The league announced that Ingold was fined $14,333 for unnecessary roughness from Miami's 36-34 win over the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 1. According to the league, the play in question occurred at the 13:19 mark of the second quarter.
Kyle Crabbs of Athlon Sports pulled the tape, and it honestly makes one wonder if the league put the wrong time in its report.
The contact in question looks like any other, with both Ingold and the defender he's blocking lowering their heads slightly to prepare for contact with each other, which is completely understandable under the circumstances. It looks like they might make contact with their helmets, but neither initiated the contact; it was simultaneous. It looks like a block on any given down in any given game across the league.
It does warrant the question of whether this is truly the play, because, again, the contact is very common and innocuous. However, if it indeed is the play, then Ingold has every right to be upset with the league's decision and appeal, which he said this week he will do.
"I think when you have a clicker and you're not on the field, you can see a lot," Ingold said. "You can kind of chase ghosts. I can't imagine that play not happening hundreds of times every single Sunday. I'm going to appeal it. Pretty upset about that, but the cost of doing business. It's that edge of setting the tone, but doing your job and protecting the team. It's a tough one to swallow. Wasn't too happy about that one, but we'll go through the process. It's not the first time stuff like that has happened. I've got a great agent that will walk me through that process, and we'll just go from there."
Ingold has a point in that it does appear to be very common contact, so singling players out for such behavior doesn't help police it out, but rather punish what appears to be normal football contact. As such, his appeal will be interesting to follow.
If his appeal fails, he will fortunately be in better position to deal with it thanks to Chris Grier and the Dolphins.
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Featured image via Twitter/X account @GrindingTheTape
