The Seattle Seahawks have been fined $400,000, coach Pete Carroll has been fined $200,000 and the team must forfeit a 2017 fifth-round draft pick and the first week of the 2017 season’s offseason work out activities (OTAs) for violating the NFL’s “no live contact” rule in the collective bargaining agreement.
The NFL and NFLPA both independently viewed video obtained from the Seahawks OTA in June and both agreed the Seahawks violated the rule.
The rule, Appendix G, states “voluntary offseason workout programs are intended to provide training, teaching and physical conditioning for players. The intensity and tempo of drills should be at a level conducive to learning, with player safety as the highest priority, and not at a level where one player is in a physical contest with another player.” The rule was cited by the NFL in this development, according to ESPN.
This is the third time the Seahawks have violated the no-contact rule since Carroll’s tenure began in 2010.
The draft pick is an especially stiff penalty. The Seahawks have had tremendous success over the last few seasons in the later rounds. Defensive backs Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor and Byron Maxwell, linebacker Malcolm Smith and running back Justin Forsett were all selected by the Seahawks in the fifth round or later since 2008.
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