Steelers receiver Emmanuel Sanders obviously faked an injury to give his team a free timeout in Week Seven against the Bengals, and as a result the NFL has fined him $15,000. That’s not a particularly stiff fine by the standards of NFL rules violations, but Sanders is still unhappy.
The Associated Press reports that Sanders is angry at the NFL for fining him, and he will appeal the fine.
“We’re going to appeal it, and that’s it,” Sanders said. “I don’t know what they were trying to do, but that’s not for me to think about. We’re just going to appeal it, and we’ll deal with it then. I don’t know who we have to appeal it to, but I’m talking with my agent and the NFLPA to find out just how we have to go about appealing it.”
It’s hard to swallow Sanders’ claim that he doesn’t know what the NFL was trying to do, because the NFL made it clear when it fined Sanders exactly what it’s trying to do: The NFL is trying to stop players from faking injuries to get free timeouts.
And because Sanders blatantly faked an injury to get a free timeout, the honorable thing for Sanders to do would be to accept his fine and move on. Then again, an honorable person wouldn’t fake an injury in the first place.