The NFL denied Titans safety Michael Griffin’s appeal on Tuesday, choosing to uphold his one-game suspension as a repeat violator of safety rules prohibiting hits to the head and neck area of defenseless players.
Griffin was flagged for unnecessary roughness in Sunday’s win over Oakland, after hitting Raiders tight end Mychal Rivera in the head/neck area. It was Griffin’s second such penalty of the season and fourth since 2011.
The suspension without pay will cost Griffin $205,882.35, which is one-seventeenth of his $3.5 million base salary.
The Titans will get a roster exemption for Griffin this Sunday against Indianapolis.
Speaking on his weekly radio show on Tuesday, Griffin said that “at the end of the day, it’s a blessing because nobody was hurt,” but he also expressed disappointment and frustration with the league’s ruling.
“It’s crazy,” Griffin said on the radio show. “I asked them what I should have done differently and he told me there was no clear black-and-white answer … You’re penalizing someone $205,000 for a hit that you still can’t give me a black-and-white answer on what I’m supposed to do differently?”
Griffin said he did all he could to reduce the impact of the collision between the two players, also pointing out that Rivera began falling to the ground on his own, just two steps after catching the pass.
“I did not put my helmet into him,” Griffin said. “I didn’t even lunge into him. If I wanted to end him, I would have ended him. But I didn’t. I tried to do everything I can to pull off. They tell me to go low, and now when the receiver goes low, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Just let him catch the ball?”
