During his NFL career, professional quarterback Matt Hasselbeck has played for three different teams, thrown for more than 34,000 yards, and started for the Seattle Sehawks in Super Bowl XL.
He can also add a fine for a horse-collar tackle to his resume.
In what might be the strangest news of the day, the NFL fined Hasselbeck $15,750 because he horse-collared Kelvin Hayden of the Chicago Bears on Sunday, as reported by an ESPN.com article this afternoon.
But there are also other quarterbacks who have been fined for dishing out on-field hits, despite the fact that their position is one of the most protected in the game of football.
November 2011: Matthew Stafford grabs Chicago Bears cornerback D.J. Moore by the helmet and tosses him following an interception. The NFL fines him $7,500 according to an ESPN.com article. (You can also see a video of the hit on YouTube).
October 2010: Kevin Kolb, in his final season with the Eagles, is fined $5,000, "For a horse-collar tackle on Atlanta's William Moore while Moore was returning an interception," according to the website justfines.com.
November 2009: Brady Quinn, playing for the Browns, hits Terrell Suggs low and injures the linebacker, and is subsequently fined $7,500. However, Quinn does say in an AOL News article that, "'I was trying to go for the ball carrier. Suggs came across at the last second in my vision. I would never wish that upon anyone. I was upset about it on the field. We worked out in Arizona together. I couldn't be any more sorry about that. That was never the intent. I'm sorry to Terrell and the rest of their team.'"
Despite Quinn's apologies, it's only right that these quarterbacks get fined for their transgressions. Players at other positions on the field get penalized for illegal hits, so why shouldn't quarterbacks? They're football players just like everyone else, and when they hit illegally they should be fined for it.
But at the same time, quarterbacks should be taught proper tackling techniques so they don't have to use banned methods to bring down defenders who've just intercepted a pass or recovered a fumble. This is just a guess, but maybe one of the reasons quarterbacks get fined for illegal hits is that they don't know how to tackle. Think about it like this: They spend all their time learning the plays, perfecting their ability to throw, and being protected from everyone else. Perhaps they should be taught how to properly hit and wrap on a tackling dummy so they aren't faced with having to subvert the rules to bring players down during games. Yes, that means taking off the red jersey and letting them get a little bit dirty during practice, but then fines, not to mention threats to player safety, could be avoided.
**Justfines.com and the AOL article from which the Quinn quote was taken provided the information on the fine Quinn received and the nature of the hit. Furthermore, the only time a video provided information regarding a hit was with the Stafford play. No videos of any of the other hits that were referenced in this article could be found.
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