As expected, Lions safety Tracy Walker was fined for his illegal hit on Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts in Week 1.
NFL quarterbacks are absolutely off-limits when they slide as a runner, even if a defender has to adjust, redirect or stop on a dime while moving at full speed. Lions safety Tracy Walker committed just such a sin on Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts in Week 1, and he surely awaited a fine letter from the league all week.
ESPN’s Eric Woodyard reported on Friday that Walker has indeed been fined $11,000 for what looked to be a helmet-to-helmet hit on Hurts. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and others tabbed the fine more precisely at $11,139, with the extra perhaps tacked on for what happened after the hit.
After Walker drew the flag for the hit on Hurts, some other Eagles came to the defense of their quarterback–as should be expected. Walker threw a punch at Dallas Goedert, striking the Eagles’ tight end first and wide receiver Zach Paschal eventually while a referee was trying to break things up.
The back-to-back fouls earned Walker a quick ejection. He led the Lions with 11 tackles in the game, along with a sack.
Tracy Walker knows he let his teammates down
After the game, Walker, who was named a Lions’ captain before the season, acknowledged how he let his teammates down.
I just let my team down,” Walker said. “Me, as a team captain, I’ve just got to be better. I was hot-headed at the moment, and like I said, I’ve just got to make better decisions at the end of the day.”
Walker has been flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit one other time in his career, but he was not fined for that infraction. However, as Pride of Detroit reminds us, he was fined for criticizing the officiating after that game against the Green Packers–a game Lions’ fans may remember as the “Trey Flowers illegal hands to the face game.”
Walker seems to not have been the only Lion fined after Week 1. Safety DeShon Elliott and kicker Austin Seibert, via their Instagrams (@officialshon_4 and @bigseib respectively), appeared to complain about being fined for uniform violations related to having their knees covered.