Things ended ugly in the Seahawks-Jaguars game with multiple personal foul penalties on Seahawks players. Two Seahawks players were ejected, including Quinton Jefferson who got into a verbal altercation with several Jaguars fans on his way out. On his way to the locker room, a drink was thrown at Jefferson, who stopped and walked back over to the fans instead of continuing his walk out of the stadium.
At this point, another drink was thrown towards Jefferson’s head, who had his helmet off. Jefferson climbed up the railing and attempted to go into the stands to confront the fan. Luckily, security was able to pull Jefferson down from the wall, and walk him back to the locker room. The incident was reminiscent of a massive NBA brawl which turned ugly when Ron Artest was hit in the face with a drink. Artest then went into the stands to fight the fan. Here’s a look at the 2004 NBA fight.
The NFL likely would have had a similar incident had security been unable to stop Jefferson from confronting the fan. Michael Bennett was not one of the players ejected, but a replay shows Bennett tackling Jaguars lineman Brandon Linder at the knees. Look for the NFL to review the incident, and would not be surprising if Bennett is disciplined for what appeared to be a cheap shot.
Seattle leads the league in penalties with 9.5 per game, and it was an unfortunate way for an otherwise competitive game to end. Here’s a video clip of the scuffle that led to the ejections.
As for the game itself, it was an impressive outing from a Jaguars team that has outperformed their preseason expectations. Jacksonville survived a late Seattle comeback to come away with a 30-24 victory. A.J. Bouye led the way for the Jags defense with two key interceptions. Blake Bortles threw for 268 yards and two touchdowns without throwing an interception.
The Jaguars are 9-4, and have a one game lead on the Titans in the AFC South. Seattle fell to 8-5, but were fortunate as the Rams also lost to the Eagles.
Pete Carroll has continued to voice his frustration over his team’s penalty issues including in this early November interview with The News Tribune.
We are going to keep working at it [limiting penalties]. We’ve got a number of things that we are going to do. We will get after that again today and step it up. We think it is a group thing, obviously, when you have a bunch like this, but it comes down to individual choices and making good decisions and doing things right.
Overall, the Seahawks have not managed to show much improvement this season when it comes to penalties, but Seattle did only have six penalties against the Jaguars. This number would have looked even better if Seattle managed to keep its composure at the end of the game.