The NFL protocol about wearing masks in-game has been in full throttle over the past few weeks, but unfortunately it's not as easy for everyone to abide especially coaches. And, failing to abide has come at quite a costly price as a handful of NFL coaches have been fined for breaching the mask protocol, among them New Orleans Saints' Sean Payton.
Payton was one of the coaches who were fined for failing to wear his mask in their Week 2 loss against the Las Vegas Raiders. The 56-year-old admits though that he has no one to blame but himself for his lack of presence of mind in remembering to put his mask back on.
“I’ve just gotta do a better job when we’re not on offense,” Payton said Wednesday, via Amie Just of nola.com. “It’s OK if you’re pulling it down while you’re calling plays but what happens is I get caught up in the game and half the time forget that it’s down, so I’ve just gotta be more diligent with it.”
Payton was slapped a $100,000 fine by the league for his mask blunder while the Saints organization was issued an additional $250,000 fine. That's a total of $350,000 for simply failing to wear a mask in-game. The long-time coach has also issued an apology for his lapses and says that he will try to do better in the coming games.
After two weeks, the league has now issued a total of $1.75 million in fines to both coaches and teams for failing to properly wear their face coverings.
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