Cardinals punish one of their own with a massive fine following altercation between Jonathan Gannon and Emari Demercado
They laid down the law quickly.
One of the biggest blunders of the NFL season happened in Week 5 when Arizona Cardinals running back Emari Demercado dropped the football just before he entered the end zone, causing a touchback instead of a touchdown. The Cards ended up blowing a massive fourth quarter lead to give the Tennessee Titans their first win of the season. The mistake was incredibly costly for Arizona.
After the gaff, Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon went ballistic on Demercado on the sideline. Now, the Cardinals are taking action against their own head coach following the sideline explosion.
Cardinals fine head coach Jonathan Gannon $100k for altercation with Emari Demercado
According to Adam Schefter, the Cardinals have addressed the altercation. They’re fining Jonathan Gannon $100,000 for his actions. Gannon was understandably, visibly upset with the running back for the mistake and also made some physical contact with Demercado on the sideline.
This decision by the Cardinals is a bold one. Gannon is the first NFL head coach to be fined for an altercation with a player since the NFL fined former Tampa Bay Buccaneers HC Bruce Arians $50,000 for swiping his hand at an opposing player’s helmet during a Wild-Card game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
While the blowup was an aggressive look for the head coach, fining him this amount does seem a bit excessive. These sort of interactions are a part of coaching in the NFL or any professional sports league, and plenty of them occur without the cameras on during practices. Emotions run high a lot of the time.
Unfortunately for the Cards HC, this interaction was shown on broadcasts and in the postgame. It would have been impossible for this altercation to happen on the sideline of a nationally televised game without some sort of video getting captured in some capacity.
I talked to A to Z’s Rob Gregson, who showed the other side of the coin when it comes to this punishment. He relayed some reasoning for why it made sense for the team to fine him in today’s NFL.
Why it was the right move by Arizona
“Jonathan Gannon broke a Cardinal sin during Sunday’s game against the Titans. Hard coaching is a must at all levels of football. There is no denying that. If you want to even grab a player’s facemask, to pull them in, and let them know what you mean, that probably still has some application at lower levels of ball.
But this is the NFL. The highest of the high with the most professionalism required. These are grown men who have wives, children, and mortgages. So, to make physical contact with a player is unacceptable. Gannon is a coach, not a player. He’s supposed to be leading by example. Because what would have happened if Demercado had turned around and hit Gannon? Then who would have been at fault? It was the right move from the Cardinals.” — Rob Gregson, A to Z Sports
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