Hunter Watts

Another thing worth discussing about Minkah Fitzpatrick's hit that caused Nick Chubb's gruesome and potentially career-ending injury is the the way the NFL and its media organs want you to forget that "Bountygate" was only 12 years ago. The idea that NFL players wouldn't intentionally injure their opponents is not only unbelievable on its face but *known* to be false, and Bountygate was likely the tip of the iceberg. This certainly explains why ESPN took the remarkable step of refusing to show Fitzpatrick's hit on television—because the broadcasters knew how dirty this play was, and how bad it looks for the league. If you wanted to take out a player on the Browns, Chubb would certainly be one of your top targets. It would also explain why Fitzpatrick stayed on the ground for so long after the hit and looked like he was sick to his stomach on the sidelines, like someone who vomits after they commit their first homicide. Again, this is not that complicated. You know when you're a kid on the playground that if you push someone they're going to fall over if someone else is crouching behind them. Likewise, any football player knows that diving full speed into an opponent's knee while other players are holding that opponent up is highly likely to cause serious injury. The key is foreseeability. When players make plays that foreseeably cause serious injuries, like Fitzpatrick did to Chubb on Monday, there should be serious consequences. It's no different than knowing not to hit a quarterback after he's thrown the ball or when he's sliding, or knowing not to hit a player helmet to helmet, or when he's going out of bounds. There's no need to get inside anyone's head to determine intent. You just have to ask, was a serious injury foreseeably caused by the player's act or not? Here it obviously was. Thus it should be seriously penalized. Looking at this photo it's very hard to believe Minkah didn't know exactly what he was doing here but regardless he *should* have known and there should be serious consequences for it. Otherwise you're just giving these guys a license to maim each other under the guise of "legal hits," which we know is something that happens in this league. Anyway, the idea that injuries like this are just "part of the game" is absurd and something that NFL fans shouldn't tolerate, especially after what happened to one of the finest men ever to play the game, Nick Chubb. If they can keep quarterbacks safe they can take reasonable measures to keep other ballcarriers safe too. Severely punishing career-threatening hits like this should be a no-brainer, especially in the NFL.