Dunta Robinson was penalized Sunday night for nailing Eagles wide receiver Jeremy Maclin with a helmet-to-helmet hit in the third quarter. Because he’s a repeat offender (he cleaned DeSean Jackson’s clock with a similar hit last season), he was fined $40,000. Robinson blatantly dipped his helmet down as you can see in the picture. Shockingly, Atlanta coach Mike Smith says that’s the way his team teaches it.
According to the AP, “Falcons Coach Mike Smith said after the game he thought it was a legal hit and “that’s the way we teach it.’”
Nevermind how awful it sounds that Smith is suggesting his team teaches its players to make illegal hits. I’m guessing Smith hadn’t seen replays of the hit when he said that. There is no way anyone could have seen that on replay and believed it was the type of clean hit a team would teach.
As soon as I saw that hit, I didn’t flip out like Cris Collinsworth, but I did think this was a lot different from the DeSean hit. When Robinson ran into Jackson, it was done at full speed. With this one, Robinson was a few steps away and consciously chose to dip his helmet. I know coaches want to defend their players, but let’s just hope that Smith has reversed his stance. There’s no way he can possibly approve of that knowing that it’s blatantly illegal.
