Watson fined $10,000

This is a joke right?

Is Goodell serious with this crap? I'd love to hear him explain how that celebration hurt someone or hurt the integrity of the game. What a joke that guy is.

Well that's laughable. Guess using a football in a celebration burns a $10,000 hole in your wallet while popping a defenseless receiver after a deflection gets a you a pat on the helmet. So much for player safety...

Bernard Pollard = no fine

Ryan Clark = no fine

Ben Watson = $10,000

that makes sense doesn't it?

The 15-yard penalty was more than enough. $10,000? All these fines are getting way out of hand.
Congratulations, Ben. Daughters are great!

I haven't jumped on the "Fire Goodell" bandwagon prior to this, but enough is enough!!!! The Steelers' DB Clark nearly takes Welker's head off with a blind-sided, vicious hit and doesn't even get a light sanction from the NFL, but Watson harmlessly sends a message to his wife after a TD, and that's worth $10k?!?

It was against the letter of the rules, and he got his 15-yard penalty, but the NFL putting a hefty fine behind an already legalistic call is just ludicrous!

Roger Goodell is a clown and will ruin the NFL.

No Fun League

You have got to be kidding me. While it was worthy of a penalty, a fine is excessive.

Let me see here,

Welker gets nailed by Clark on a play where he was basically defenseless, ref's gave a 15 yard PF penalty and there is no fine for Clark. Player pantomimes his pregnant wife and gets fined 10K.

Simply put Goodell must go..

What an absurd thing to punish. I don't get why celebrating is banned -- particularly when it is something short and sweet.

$10,000... you have got to be kidding. I guess the recession is hitting the NFL hard. Next they'll be calling Washington for a few bucks. Or even better, Gooddell can get a tin cup and stand outside the stadium.

This proves my theory,First of all Roger goodell is punishing the Patriots for any action he can think of!!!!! It also shows that whoever is handing out Fines is Anally Retentive!!!!!! If I'm Watson I don't pay,I fight it...

This is absolutely terrible, considering the fact that the savage hit on Wes Welker two weeks ago went unpunished by the officials and the league. There was nothing harmful about what Watson did. The NFL should be happy for him, not punishing him for something trivial.

I know rules are rules, but isn't that just ridiculous - $10k for that, but dive at someone's knee with your helmet, knock them out for the entire season and hey, that's just dandy?

The most farcical part is that this already got punished with a 15-yarder ON THE FIELD. Honestly, the mind boggles.

I just don't understand the NFL dept of officiating and their seeming total lack of consistency, particularly this year. Is what he did truly worth 15 yards and 10k? Is it any more against the rules than crawling along the ground and driving your shoulder into a QB's knee? Officials should not be the story, yet it seems more and more they are these days...

Absurd! The NFL has bigger problems than this...come on.

absurd

one thing for sure, now Ben will never do such thing again in NFL game, no matter where he plays. I don't think he should have fined.

Shenanigans!!!!

I'd be more upset if Watson was a contibutor. He has been a huge disappointment. He makes most of the routine catches although he does drop some of those but i can't remember this guy ever making a great catch or doing anything extraordinary except on an interception .

This ought to play nice on ESPN with Ben saying, “I wasn't trying to taunt anybody; that was just to her. It will be a little baby girl" and Goodell trying to explain why that was worth $10,000 to the league. Of course he won’t come out from under his desk until the dust clears.

When can we expect to see some Diane Wilkerson photos of Goodell stuffing wads of cash into his bra?

Watson's display of fatherhood is using the ball as a prop but spiking the ball isn't.

The NFLs front office is acting more and more like a bunch of phoneys

In-blanking-sane.

Look at the bright side; at least Watson can carry around an ounce of weed outside work here in MA and it'll be legal.

The players need some representation.

Yeah and while your at it reinstate Pac Man. While not fining on Welkers hit , Wonder why the Jet was fined on Boldons hit. Oh yeah it was a Card not a Patriot hit. Wonder what the Patriot player would have been fined if they made a similar hit on Manning that was made on Brady . Hmm just wondering. What a total moron

OK probably not worth commenting on... but I will any way...Come on everyone....the NFL is doing the right thing by fining players who use the very symbol of the sport as a celebration prop...Asking referees or league officials to distinguish touchdown celebrations as positive or derrogetory to the sport would be like asking our courts to determine if homicide was pre-meditated or in the heat of passion or negligent ...it would be like asking teachers to determine if a student was learning the material or not....you don't really expect the NFL to have to make an interpretation do you? Why if they had to do that they might just have to go to the video tape for assistance and that would only slow down the game !! No...its a good thing they are making this black and white because once you let one celebration reach a certainlevel of social conscience then you have to let the next celebration out do the last one and before you know it you have a bunch of independent innovative celebrations going on and seriously folks....how could the league survive??

Let's hope the money can at least go to a childrens charity or someone who needs it more than the NFL.

Football as a prop is much worse then leveling a player after the ball is dead. Rules are rules.

All kidding aside.... Reiss is right about a great story. If anything the NFL gave more motivation for players to do this as it gain a lot more publicity toward the act. We all know how much football players like publicity. Remember Fred-Ex?

Okay, I don't believe this is because he's a Patriot, so we'll put that aside. This is just plain ridiculous, and that's really all there is to it.

Perhaps instead of fining players indiscriminantly for touchdown celebrations, the NFL should consider giving BONUSES for classy and/or entertaining TD celebrations, to balance out fines for classless celebrations and taunting. Maybe that would improve the NFL's image, and make it more entertaining.

Oops, almost forgot, Goodell is the commish. Scratch that idea.

when goodell first came on the scene i liked that he was removing the thuggery of the nfl but lately there is no rhyme or reason behind his decisions of who or who wont get fined. way to go

This fine is ridiculous, but I think some of you need to stop whining about Ryan Clark 2 weeks after the fact.

If that was Rodney Harrison (widely regarded as one of the dirtiest players by his peers) putting a hit on Hines Ward or something, you would be defending the hit.

Don't just choose to forget about the cheap shots that Harrison laid on people...he made hits like the Clark hit on a regular basis; you're just jaded because you got stomped by a superior team.

Bob,

you miss the point here. It is not so much about Clark as it is the inconsistency of the NFL Commissioners office. There is no harm to the integrity game or other players by what Watson did, hitting a player in the knees on purpose or hitting a defensless reciever harms not only the integrity of the game - it endangers the players. How you would fine Watson in this instance is absurd and does nothing for the game - and by the way the football as some sort of sacrosanct symbol of the game? Not sure I agree with that, when I think of the game of football I think of great plays and great plyers - not a bladder covered with pigskin.

Good work, NFL. This will really teach the players. You're really acting like a bunch of idiots. I get it: you don't want to punish the players for playing hard like Pollard or Clark supposedly were when they laid it out there and hurt players, but this type of fine absolutely fails the common sense litmus test; thus you look like a bunch of idiots with a thick rule book that is full of stupid and obvious loopholes.

The hit on Welker was legal. Pats fans applaud when Rodney (dirtiest player in the NFL) Harrison makes a hit like that.

Uhhh if Rodney Harrison layed that hit down, he would have been fined $50,000 and probably burned at the stake by the NFL.

I think that's what everyone's angry about. Not the hit itself, but the lack of punishment (especially when compared to something like the Watson fine).

I completely agree with all criticism of the call and fine. At best it's a farce...at worst it's more 'punish the Patriot' for soiling our 'great and powerful' game. Seems like these comments should all be posted at NFL.com, or Roger Goodell's personal e-mail? Anyone have it?

Makes me want to give up on the NFL all together...

Roger Goodell is a clown. I hope he at least has enough class to send Watson a card when his baby daughter is born. Best wishes to Ben and his growing family...

If I were his teammate, I'd pick up the tab on this one for him (or take up a collection in the locker room to cover it).

Goodell is out of control.

Jerry Glanville (or whoever it was) had it right--this is turning into the No Fun League.

It's stupid, but...it's the rule. This is like complaining about a speeding ticket when you're staring at the posted speed limit.

But "Classless" that's not the point....the point is the rule is enforced/reinforced inconsistently..plenty of people are flagged according to the rules and never fined and/or plenty of people aren't flagged but still fined ...The point is that the rule is designed to prevent "taunting" yet it doesn't because worse taunting comes with "sack experts" who drop QBs for a loss and perform "lights out" dances

The NFL needs to lighten up!~ They are certainly making good use of their nickname...No Fun League!~

Congrats to Ben Watson and his Wife for the baby girl. Babies are precious, so enjoy her:)

They should just give the refs cell phones so they can call roger and ask what they should do. Roger can then set up voice mail saying "if you are calling me about a play involving the patriots, please press one and you'll be connected to our legal department."

There is something really wrong with Roger Goodell. I hope he gets a post card from his friends in the Harrison family.