J.R. Smith allegedly involved in New York choking incident
November 20, 2015CLE Up, A-Town Down: Cavs-Hawks, Behind the Box Score
November 21, 2015I was all prepared to start the Arthur Moats hate club after his facemask grab on Johnny Manziel. My reaction was that he was just another Steeler in the image of James Harrison with ill intentions and no remorse or understanding. And then immediately on the field he seemed apologetic as he skipped any argument with the officials and explained to his teammates that he’d messed up. Watch the clip again.
See how Moats instantly seems to own up to his mistake and seems kind of sheepish and apologetic? He followed that up with a Twitter apology.
@JManziel2 Mybad on the facemask bro. No hard feelings
— Arthur Moats (@dabody52) November 15, 2015
That really took the teeth out of the news that arrived on Friday announcing that Moats had been fined $8,681 by the league for his dangerous play. In PFT’s note on the story, they also passed along that Moats had written a $300,000 check to his alma mater, James Madison University this week.
So any plans I had to hate Arthur Moats are cancelled or at least suspended indefinitely. He’s definitely not James Harrison who is unrepentant in stacking up penalty after penalty followed by fine after fine, totalling more than $150,000 since 2010. I am not sure how many of those fines were earned against Browns players, but there are plenty to choose from. Harrison has knocked out Colt McCoy, Josh Cribbs, Mohamed Massaquoi, and even put a giant shot on Thad Lewis. Just a quick through the WFNY image archives tells a nasty tale.
And of course there’s the famous gun photo.
So, it’s safe to say that Arthur Moats won’t be confused with James Harrison. And even James Harrison might be a decent guy if you ever met him in person. I have no idea. I just know that he’s played football with bad intentions and little regret or understanding as to why you aren’t allowed to turn yourself into a human head-wrecking missile. I start to get upset at James Harrison all over again thinking about how much damage – illegal and legal – he’s done to the Browns over the years.
I’m going to just stop there. I’m tired of talking about Steelers anyway.
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Just six more weeks and we get to talk about them all over again. We’ll also be discussing how mad we are at Pettine for not starting Johnny earlier, as we’re about to go 8-8.
Moats was very active in the community trying to help people when with the Bills