NEWSLETTER
Danny Trevathan didn’t believe his hit that sent Green Bay Packers receiver Davante Adams to the hospital on Thursday wasn’t intentional and believed it wasn’t worthy of a suspension. The NFL seems to disagree.
Trevathan has been suspended for the team’s next two games for a violation of player safety rules, the NFL announced on Saturday. The announcement comes two days after Trevathan’s bone-crunching hit made waves and came with near unanimous vilification around the league. We discussed the hit and the possibility of it leading to a suspension yesterday here.
The league announced Trevathan’s hit was in violation of Rule 12, Section 2, Article 6 (i) which states that “there shall be no unnecessary roughness. This shall include, but will not be limited to: (i) using any part of a player’s helmet or facemask to butt, spear, or ram an opponent violently or unnecessarily.”
On the play, Trevathan lowered the crown of his helmet and connected with Adams after he was wrapped up by teammates. The unsportsmanlike unnecessary roughness penalty came on third down, kept the Bears defense on the field, and resulted in a touchdown for the Packers one play later. It’s going to be a costly hit for Trevathan, as Brad Biggs tweets the Bears linebacker stands to lose $411,764 in base salary and another $31,250 in bonus pay for not being on the team’s 46-man active game day roster.
Trevathan has the opportunity to appeal, but he’ll miss the team’s next two games against the Minnesota Vikings on October 9 and Baltimore Ravens on October 15 if he doesn’t appeal or if it is unsuccessful. If Trevathan’s suspension stands, it means the Bears will be without both of their opening week starting linebackers and will be working with their fourth different starting inside linebacker tandem in five games.
