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The NFL has been busy this week in handing coaches and teams fines for not properly wearing masks during games.
According to Adam Schefter, the league slapped Steelers’ head coach Mike Tomlin with a $100,000 fine and fined the team an extra $250,000 after not wearing masks correctly during their win against the Ravens.
More fines for more mask violations: NFL fined Steelers’ HC Mike Tomlin $100,000 and the team $250,000 for not wearing masks during win over the Ravens, sources tell ESPN. pic.twitter.com/VHSLy9zINM
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 6, 2020
It’s been an expensive week for the Steelers. Not only were they hit with these fines due to mask-wearing, but JuJu Smith-Schuster and James Connor were also each fined $5,000 for not wearing their socks correctly during their Week 7 matchup against the Titans.
While the Steelers have been hit hard with fines, they’re not even in the same ballpark as the Raiders who have racked up $1.185 million in fines for breaking COVID protocols, dwarfing every other team in the league.
The Raiders were recently fined $500,000 and stripped of a sixth-round pick in the 2021 draft, while Jon Gruden was hit with an additional $150,000 fine for what one source described to ESPN as “brazen and repeated violations.”
Fines are one thing, but the loss of a draft pick, even if it’s just a sixth-rounder, is significant especially when the likes of Tom Brady, Antonio Brown, and Delanie Walker were all sixth-round draft picks.
After doing some digging and contacting my sources, it’s my knowledge that if coaches don’t want to be fined they could just wear a mask properly; seems easy enough.