The National Football League (NFL) fined the New Orleans Saints’ cornerback Marshon Lattimore and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ running back Leonard Fournette for $13,367 each. The decision, as reported by NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, is the result of an unnecessary fight that occurred last week in New Orleans.
According to an immediate release from the NFL, the Buccaneers’ WR Mike Evans of the Buccaneers was given a one-game suspension for the incident for engaging in “unnecessary roughness” and “unsportsmanlike” behavior. Meanwhile, QB Tom Brady, who yelled at Lattimore just before the fight started, was not fined.
#Bucs RB Leonard Fournette and #Saints CB Marshon Lattimore were each fined $13,367 for unnecessary roughness from Sunday’s skirmish, per source.
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) September 24, 2022
NFL vice president of football operations Jon Runyan issued a statement in which he detailed the incident that led to the body’s decision.
“After a play had ended, you were walking toward your sidelines. When you noticed your teammates engaged in a confrontation with Saints’ players, you ran toward that area on the field and violently threw your body into and struck an unsuspecting opponent who was part of that confrontation,” Runyan wrote.
“You knocked your opponent to the ground and a melee ensued involving players from both teams. Your aggressive conduct could have caused serious injury to your opponent and clearly does not reflect the high standards of sportsmanship expected of a professional.”
How the skirmish unfolds
Prior to the incident, Fournette was seen jumping in to defend his quarterback when Lattimore yelled back at Brady. Following that, Evans rushed from the sideline to tackle and punch Lattimore in the middle of the incident. They were both removed from the game for their unsportsmanlike behavior. Brady described Evan’s suspension as “ridiculous.”
“You see those things happen all the time, and what I’d like to see is Marshon not retaliate. I believe it was Leonard Fournette … who was the first one to kind of push and shove Lattimore,” Saints coach Dennis Allen said in a statement in response to the skirmish.
“But I’ve been around this league long enough to know that usually they don’t get the instigator; they usually get the responder. I think what happened after that was a little bit excessive, so we’ll see how that goes,” he added.
According to Jeff Darlington of ESPN, Meanwhile, Evan defended his action, saying that he did so to have his team’s “back.”
“I was just trying to have my teammates’ back,” Evan said, as quoted by ESPN. “I seen (Lattimore) punch someone in the face. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
As Evans received suspension, the Buccaneers were required to bring in Cole Beasley to fill his spot, at a moment while Chris Godwin was also out with a hamstring injury. Fournette was not penalized for the altercation and wasn’t forced to miss a game.
Fournette has been a standout performer for the Buccaneers since 2020, as evidenced by his last season performance, in which he caught 69 passes, two touchdowns, for 454 yards, and recorded eight touchdowns, rushed for 812 yards in 14 games. He has rushed for 192 yards on 43 attempts in two games this season.
According to Pelissero, the Bucs’ CB Carlton Davis was penalized $13,261 for unsportsmanlike behaviour during the same game, and LB Devin White received $11,139 penalty for unnecessary roughness, despite the fact that both fines were unrelated to the brawl.