What are your options when you make your money by employing a certain type of skill set, only to be fined most of what you earn per week for those same tools that earned you your job for the first place?
If you’re Pittsburgh Steelers RB Jaylen Warren, you only have one option: stay the course. After receiving his second fine this season for an unnecessary roughness infraction (that was not flagged in-game) for the manner in which he uses his helmet, there is only one option. Stay the course. It’s expense, but it’s what gets you paid in the first place.
“It sucks because that’s so much money”, he told Brooke Pryor of ESPN, “but I don’t let it alter my play”. He added, “I don’t know if I should say this, but if I was in the same situation, I’m still doing what I’m going to do. It’s what got me on the team”.
The second-year running back was fined $48,556 for a block that he threw in pass protection on Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams. As noted above, it was not flagged in-game, but the weekly review turned it up, and he received his FedEx letter during the week notifying him.
Players always have the right to appeal, including for financial reasons. Those who make lower salaries can have the amount reduced based on their earnings, but as a multiple-time offender, Warren’s final charge was still steep. He told Pryor that it was reduced to $39,000.
And he is earning $870,000 for the 2023 season. If you want to work it out purely by game, even though that’s not quite how players are paid, that’s about $51,176 per game, so he effectively played last week for $12,000.
Which, don’t get me wrong, most people would kill for to be paid that much for a week’s worth of work. But not everybody has a profession where the average career lasts only a few years. Your earning window is narrow. But you need to keep your job to even be in position to lose that money through fines, so Warren knows what he’s going to do, even if he doesn’t understand the logic behind the restriction.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to hit dudes that’s like 350 pounds and 2 feet taller than me”, he said. “I can’t stand my ground and kind of punch ’em. They’re going to run me over. So I try to enforce the hitting, again to the point where it’s costing me”.
The man he blocked on the play in question is EDGE Michael Hoecht, listed at 310 pounds—about 100 pounds heavier than Warren. At 6-4, he’s also got about half a foot on him. That’s no easy assignment, even if Warren is strong for his size.
While he has had success as a ball carrier and pass catcher, his work in pass protection has also been critical in getting him on the field. It’s how he first got noticed in the backs-on-backers pass protection drill in training camp a year ago. So if he has to bury his head into a couple of guys who tower over him, so be it. I bet he’s getting help with those fines, anyway, permitted or not.
