SEPTEMBER 24: James appealed the suspension on Tuesday, but hearing officer Derrick Brooks upheld the ban. James will officially be out of the lineup for Week 4, the Chargers’ final game before their bye week.
SEPTEMBER 23: Derwin James will be sidelined for Week 4 after being hit with a suspension today. According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the Chargers safety has been suspended one game without pay for “repeated violations of playing rules intended to protect the health and safety of players.”
This sentiment includes this past weekend’s game against the Steelers. During the third quarter, James’ hit on Steelers tight end Pat Freiermuth caught the attention of the league, with NFL vice president of Football Operations Jon Runyan citing the defender’s “continued disregard for NFL playing rules.”
“During the third quarter of Sunday’s Chargers-Steelers game, you were involved in a play that the League considers a serious violation of the playing rules,” Runyan wrote in his letter to James (via NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport). “The video of the play shows that you lowered your head and made forcible contact to Steelers tight end Pat Freiermuth. You had an unobstructed path to your opponent and the illegal contact could have been avoided.
“Your continued disregard for NFL playing rules will not be tolerated. Substantiated penalties are warranted when players violate the rules intended to protect player safety on a repeated basis, particularly when the violations carry with them a significant risk of injury to an opposing player.”
James intends to appeal the suspension, according to Daniel Popper of The Athletic. The veteran safety has been fined a number of times throughout his career for unnecessary roughness, including a $43K fine last season for a hit on then-Lions WR Josh Reynolds. Following that most-recent fine, James said he thinks he draws more scrutiny than other NFL players.
“I think I am a little bit,” James said (via Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com). “I’m not here to referee what they need to call. I’m here to play football and help my team win games.”
The former first-round pick has spent his entire career with the Chargers, earning three All-Pro nods and a pair of Walter Payton Man of the Year award nominees. Since missing the 2020 campaign with a knee injury, James has collected five forced fumbles, nine QB hits, and 240 tackles over the past three years.
How dare he make forcible contact to an opposing player!
Seriously, I watched it live and as a Steeler fan I didn’t even blink, it looked like a normal hit. When you watched it in super slo-mo, yes it looked like a penalty… but at no point did I ever think it was a dirty play.
James made a helmet-to-helmet hit on a TE who has a history of concussions. Had the referee been told the tackle was helmet-to-helmet, James would’ve been disqualified on the spot.
Oh no he made a helmet to helmet hit? Damn almost like that’s unavoidable sometimes.
You know what else is unavoidable? Driving recklessly and causing major accidents. Yet Rashee Rice still gets to play.
Really weird the NFL suspends Derwin James over this hit the week before chargers play chiefs but Saints DE/DT Kris Boyd almost murders Devontae smith on a much more obvious illegal dirty and more dangerous hit and the NFL is like nah we gotta handle Derwin James first.
The ones who don’t think it’s dirty are those who approved of head-hunting. Last thing the NFL needs is another high-profile player getting a concussion.
FWIW, my area got the Chargers-Steelers game (opposite Giants away game) and I was able to see the hit live.
Derwin was hardly head hunting. Boyd was obviously head hunting and hasn’t received a suspension yet. Which makes the James suspension an even bigger joke than it already was.
“Well I saw it with my own eyes” you obviously need glasses then. Cause he was trying to make a tackle on a moving target. You can tell he was attempting to tackle cause replay clearly shows him extending his arms trying to wrap up. Helmet to helmet happened in the process of trying to tackle.
Is it flag worthy? Sure. Is it dirty cheap and warrants a 1 game suspension? Not even close.
link to youtu.be
It sounds like the suspension came more so because this isn’t the first time he has been involved in such a situation, from the way the article sounded.
That may very well be true. I haven’t seen the “other” hits that got him fined so I can’t attest to those
What I can say is
Helmet to helmet is unavoidable sometimes. Especially in the process of tackling.
James getting suspended over his hit trying to tackle Feiermuth who’s running with the ball but khristisn Boyd putting Devonta smith thru the guillotine taking his helmet off with a helmet to helmet hit while Devonta was defenseless as 2 or 3 guys were already tackling him forward progress was clearly stopped and he was going backwards makes 0 sense.
Add the James suspension to the fact Rashee Rice can literally put multiple people’s lives at risk with his recklessly driving and he’s allowed to play?
We should hold the NFL to higher standards than they’re currently showing us.
Coach Steve Mariucci may have said it best when asked about a similar type player on the 49ers at the time: “You wouldn’t want a team of them; but every team should have one.”
I wish my team had a resident bell ringer right now honestly, make those receivers and ends a little apprehensive
I think NFL players are quite capable of policing themselves when it comes to “cheap shot” behavior. They’ve been doing it for over 100 years now.
Derwin plays man style football, the kind I learned in 6th grade, drive through the player you’re tackling. Too many of these ‘helmet to helmet’ hits are because BOTH players lower their heads prior to contact. The logic has always been the ‘lower’ player wins.
Funny it comes before the Chiefs game as Derwin regularly is man up on Kelce, so the NFL wants to ensure Chargers lose this matchup. Already going to be short on Alt, likely Slater and Bosa maybe Herbert so why not take another premium player out to help KC as they haven’t been high flying much this season!
It was a classic helmet to helmet hit. There is no question it was a penalty and, if he has a history of those type of hits, a suspension is not unreasonable.