No one should be committing horse collar tackles in the NFL. They were added to the rule book because of the high number of devastating injuries that have been caused from players being pulled down from behind.
The rule used to be a horse collar tackle was when a player put his hand inside the pads a player and used it like a handle to tackle them from behind. This year, that rule was expanded to include tackles made from behind from pulling down on the jersey at the name plate.
That’s what earned Marquette King a flag Sunday. And Friday he was slapped with a fine of $18,231 for his transgression.
Punters are hitters, too. #Raiders P Marquette King fined $18,231 for unnecessary roughness (horse collar tackle)
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 23, 2016
That amount may have been a bit of a hardship for King last season when he was making under $400k, but he signed a new 5-year deal this offseason that has him making over $5 million this season. I think he can handle it.
One never really wants to say such a dirty tackle like that is worth it. But this one might be. First of all, return man Eric Weems was not injured on the play. If he had been, I certainly wouldn’t be talking about it insensitively.
What the tackle did was stop Weems from scoring a touchdown on a punt return.
Weems ran around the Raiders coverage team up the left sideline for 73 yards before King made the tackle as the last line of defense. He yanked him down by his jersey at the 18-yard-line. He was flagged for the horse collar tackle, which was half the distance to the goal (9 yards) to set the Falcons up in first and goal at the 9-yard-line.
The Raiders defense came out and made one of their few stops of the day, forcing them to settle for a field goal. It made his tackle a 4-point play. That works out to $4557.75 per point saved.
The Raiders would score next to take the lead at 14-13. Yeah, the Raiders ended up losing the game anyway, but even still...
Worth it.
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