CASPER
New member
PHILADELPHIA – Seeing Austin Collie motionless on the turf made some people wonder if it will take a suspension or two before the NFL's crackdown on illegal tackles hits home.
The Indianapolis Colts wide receiver suffered a concussion on a second-quarter hit to his head Sunday by Philadelphia Eagles safety Kurt Coleman. Collie was carted off the field on a stretcher, but was "awake and alert in the (locker) room," coach Jim Caldwell said after the Eagles' 26-24 victory.
"I think he'll recover quickly. He'll do OK," Caldwell added. "I won't go into all the details about it, but he took a pretty good hit. He was out, unconscious for a period of time."
When the league said in mid-October it would begin handing out suspensions for flagrant fouls against defenseless players, complaints from the defensive side of the ball couldn't have been louder. But there was a quick reduction in those illegal hits, and no one has been banned since NFL operations chief Ray Anderson handed out $175,000 in fines to three players on Oct. 19.
On Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, though, it was hard to tell if the league's message was clear enough. Defensive players sure seem uncertain about what is and what isn't legal