Why is a player/coach's opinion against a play surpressed so much in football?

Okay, Chad Ochocinco has deserved some of his fines, but seriously? $20,000 for flashing a $1 bill at the refs? And Cutler is getting fined $20,000 for yelling at the refs? Give me a friggin' break. Do the refs go home and cry to their wives about how the big bad players are mean to them? Yes, they players have a job but this is still a sport where calls will occasionally be WRONG. This kind of stuff happens all the time, it's nothing new. Does an opinion scare the NFL that much? Pathetic. To make it worse this crap happens in college ball as well. Urban Meyer was fined $30,000 for sticking up for his quarterback Tim Tebow, after a game, by critisizing the refs on missing a late hit near the end of a game. Unbelievable.

This honestly has to be some sort of violation of freedom of speech. Do the players sign something in their NFL contract that says don't make the refs sad or something? Psh.

A college player fined $30,000?Ugalde-

[QUOTE="Ugalde-"]A college player fined $30,000?DA_B0MB

Yelling at the refs is one thing but flashing a dollar bill is just a sad cry for attention. I can't stand Chad Johnson and he deserved the fine he got. Y2Jfan23

What he did was really stupid. He mocked the integrity of the game and if i were the commissioner i would have suspended him for at least one game in addition to a fine.

Yelling at the refs is one thing but flashing a dollar bill is just a sad cry for attention. I can't stand Chad Johnson and he deserved the fine he got. Y2Jfan23

I don't usually sympathize with people who are making multi-million dollar salaries and get fined 20 K, boo hoo, you lost 1/100 of your paycheck, but when I saw that Tommie Harris was fined 1/3 of what Cutler was I had to do a double take. You fine a guy 20K for arguing with a ref and you fine another guy 7K for punching a guy? There's something not right there.

[QUOTE="Y2Jfan23"]Yelling at the refs is one thing but flashing a dollar bill is just a sad cry for attention. I can't stand Chad Johnson and he deserved the fine he got. DA_B0MB

I don't know if I like what Ochocinco's doing, in his case he's obviously trying to elicit attention, but that stupid call against the Eagles for the Captain Morgan celebration? I think that was just ridiculous. Then again, i don't really get the NFL's rules against celebrations, it seems so arbitrary in the first place.

I don't usually sympathize with people who are making multi-million dollar salaries and get fined 20 K, boo hoo, you lost 1/100 of your paycheck, but when I saw that Tommie Harris was fined 1/3 of what Cutler was I had to do a double take. You fine a guy 20K for arguing with a ref and you fine another guy 7K for punching a guy? There's something not right there.

theone86

but Urban Meyer's fine of $30,000 is a just an absolute mockery.DA_B0MB

[QUOTE="DA_B0MB"][QUOTE="duxup"]Pathetic is not acting like a pro but collecting a paycheck as one. The fines should be accordingly large. There is no violation of freedom of speech, you need to brush up on that topic.duxup

Freedom of speech is relevant here. You can critisize people of other professions for not doing their job, so why not refs? How would you like a mechanic to not fix your engine properly....you complain because he screwed up.....and you get a fine for voicing your opnion.

same thing goes for referees, their a profession, they should be critisized just like normal people can and the person not fined.

I think they just want all these matters to be private. I mean, there's no reason for us to know the criticisms teams, players, or coaches give refs.

Chad also deserved his fine. Even though it was hilarious, people are just going to copy or do things similar and the NFL doesn't want that so they had to set an example.

Urban was fined so much because SEC refs have been in the spotlight recently for horrible calls and they didn't need more attention to it. SEC already took action against some refs, Urban was just piling it on.

And I find it hilarious Urban is complaining about a no call when they have received so many beneficial BS calls this season.

Didn't hear him then.

Does the NFL keep all the fine money themselves, or do they donate it to charity?LoseEagles1245

Goes to a fund to help retired players.

Why is this such a bad thing? Have you lost anything from this? Chad has cars that cost 10 times what he just paid to the NFL, so this is no big deal at all.

The NFL can't raise the fine price because there are players in the league who only make around $150,000 a year.

Let's say they did raise the price and let's just say that some no-name linebacker gets a fine due to an in-game act of idiocy. Let's also say that his salary this year will grant him a total of $140,000 from his franchise. So the NFL fines him $100,000 which takes away around 71% of his salary for the year. He is left with $40,000 to provide for himself, his family, etc, which by the way, is considered to be living in poverty.

Now let's say that a guy like Ochocinco get's a fine for the same exact amount, $100,000. Due to the fact that I don't know what his actual salary for the year is, I'll make an estimate (a poor one at that) that he'll make around $8.2 million this year. Ochocinco would lose just over 1% of his total salary this year. He is left with $8.1 million to himself.

I think the true solution is to take only a percentage from a player's yearly salary as a fine rather than a set amount. Also, raise the percentage. Taking 1% of a guy's yearly earnings maybe prevents him from purchasing a candy bar from his local convenient store, but that's about all. Take at least 5%, preferably 10%.

By the way, I love Ochocinco and enjoy watching his games to see what he does new each week. People who complain about him truly have no sense of humor.

[QUOTE="Y2Jfan23"]Yelling at the refs is one thing but flashing a dollar bill is just a sad cry for attention. I can't stand Chad Johnson and he deserved the fine he got. DA_B0MB

I agree! Ocho was just trying to have fun and 99.999% of NFL fans thought it was funny and knew he was joking. For the other .001%, sorry football players like to have fun at the games just like most fans. I'm pretty sure most coaches say to have fun and winning isn't everything. Pros or not, that shouldn't have to change. And the NFL is way too much No Fun League and more Ocho's would totally help!

[QUOTE="duxup"][QUOTE="DA_B0MB"] Chad Ochocinco is one who's easy to not think of too kindly if you don't find his sense of humor funny, but Urban Meyer's fine of $30,000 is a just an absolute mockery. .And at the very least freedom of speech certainly isn't encouraged if it could potentially cost you $20,000+. RahXephon101

Freedom of speech is relevant here. You can critisize people of other professions for not doing their job, so why not refs? How would you like a mechanic to not fix your engine properly....you complain because he screwed up.....and you get a fine for voicing your opnion.

same thing goes for referees, their a profession, they should be critisized just like normal people can and the person not fined.