The NFL announced Monday that Redskins safety Brandon Meriweather has been suspended without pay for two games for repeat violations this season of NFL safety rules prohibiting hits to the head and neck area of defenseless players.
During the two week suspension Meriweather will not be allowed to practice or correspond with the team. Meriweather will be reinstated to the league on November 4.
Meriweather was flagged for illegal hits on two different plays Sunday against the Bears. One of the recipients of those hits, Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall, spoke openly about Meriweather’s style and added that he believed he should be suspended or kicked out of the game altogether.
“Guys like that really don’t understand that there is life after football,” Marshall told the Chicago Tribune.
The suspension will cost Brandon Meriweather $141,176 in game checks. The NFL fined Meriweather $42,000 last month for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Green Bay Packer runningback Eddie Lacy.
“I feel like every hit that I took was a legit hit,” Meriweather told the Washington Post. “I wasn’t trying to be dirty. I wasn’t trying to hurt nobody. I didn’t launch with my head. I used my shoulder like they told me to do. Everything I did was a pointer from them (league officials). … You’ve just got to play. There ain’t nothing I can do about it. I just go out there and play.”
With this two game suspension I think it’s an understatement to say the NFL is sending Meriweather a clear message, change….or else.
UPDATE:
Brandon Meriweather had his two game suspension reduced to one game after his appeal hearing.
NFL announced that hearing officer Ted Cottrell reduced Brandon Meriweather’s two-game suspension to a one-game suspension without pay.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) October 23, 2013
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