NFL Hits Three Head Coaches With $250,000 Fines For Their Behavior Toward Referees | NFL

Mike Vrabel, Aaron Glenn and Nick Sirianni each owe the NFL $250,000, at least on paper. Sports Illustrated reports the league fined the Patriots, Jets and Eagles coaches for their conduct toward game officials. The money may never leave their bank accounts. The fines sit in abeyance, so the league can waive them if the three keep their behavior in check. What triggered the penalties is unclear. No one has said whether one outburst or a longer pattern led to them.

Mike Vrabel, Aaron Glenn and Nick Sirianni fined by the NFL

Vrabel’s case has the clearest paper trail. In Week 4, officials flagged him after he voiced his displeasure with a call, and he talked about it openly afterward. “I told him it was a terrible — I’m not going to say effing — call,” Vrabel said after the game.

He added, “I’ve said that 87 times since I’ve been a head coach. It was nothing derogatory. You’d have to ask him. I think he was a little sensitive.”

The report ties no named incident to Glenn or Sirianni, so their side of this story stays blank for now.

Referee Adrian Hill suspended after Eric Wilson incident

Officials have had a rough stretch of their own. After Week 5, the league disciplined two of them. Line judge Jeff Seeman took a fine for apparently cursing at Arizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride. Referee Adrian Hill drew a one-game suspension for unprofessional conduct toward Minnesota Vikings linebacker Eric Wilson.

Hill’s trouble started with a shove. After the play was blown dead, a Miami Dolphins player pushed Wilson into the referee and knocked him to the ground. Wilson offered a hand. Hill sprang up, pointed at him and yelled at him to get away.

Wilson laughed it off when he spoke to reporters in the Vikings’ locker room, according to ESPN. “That was funny, honestly,” he said. “I ended up apologizing to him and explained the situation. He was cool about it. He understood what was going on. He just said he didn’t want us fighting, me and (Dolphins running back Ollie Gordon II). He said he was just trying to break us up.”