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The NFL has a problem that, for whatever reason, it has failed to properly acknowledge.
Players, it seems, have a thing for punching and grabbing other players in the crotch.
Although the chestnut clutch-and-crush move has been a long-time staple at the bottom of a pile-up, guys are getting increasingly brazen with the more easily detectable jab to the giblets.
Last week, Pats guard Logan Mankins was ejected for punching Broncos defensive end Ebenezer Ekuban in the groinius maximus. Mankins also was fined $7,500, although he claims that the punch was not intentionally targeted at Ekuban's eggs and sausage.
''I was trying to get him off of me and my hand came from the ground and caught him in the crotch," Mankins said. ''I just know he was on my hand and I wanted to get him off." (Editor's note: Whenever discussing the issue of making contact with another man's genitalia, it is not advisable to use the phrase "I wanted to get him off.")
On Sunday, Rams defensive tackle Damione Lewis delivered a blow to the bladder bling of Saints center LeCharles Bentley, drawing another ejection, along with the ire of Bentley and Rams interim coach Joe Vitt.
"You don't do that where I'm from," Bentley said, according to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "But he's a [University of] Miami guy. What do you expect? I hope the league fines him to the utmost degree of the law. They should ban him for a game, too. We don't need that in this league."
Said Vitt. also per The P-D: "We will not tolerate it. It'll be dealt with. We're going to play the game the right way, and that's not the right way."
Last year, Saints defensive back Steve Gleason was fined only $5,000 for a similar maneuver -- which seemed extremely incongruous to us in light of the $10,000 fine that was slapped on Randy Moss for merely pretending to show his cheeks to the Cheeseheads.
Although the league apparently has jacked up the price tag for a punch to the pee-pee by 50 percent in the past year, the $7,500 levied against Mankins last week matches the fine imposed six years ago on then-Vikings defensive end Duane Clemons for a power shot to Flozell's mini-hotel.
Look, the only way to get guys to quit attempting to inflict intentional injury on the manhood of other players (who typically don't wear cups), the NFL should significantly increase fines for conduct that, if it occurred in a bar or on a street corner, could get a guy thrown in jail.
If the league is willing to fine guys like Jim Haslett and Coach Teflon 20 large for (God forbid) acknowledging that the zebras are human and, like the rest of us, screw things up from time to time, players who see fit to target the testes of other guys should at least pay that amount -- if not much more.
source: Profootballtalk
