A slap to the face of an opponent will be costly for Los Angeles Chargers defensive tackle Teair Tart, ESPN reported on Friday.
The NFL reportedly fined Tart for his open-handed connection with the facemask of Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce last week as the Chargers defeated the Chiefs 27-21 in Sao Paulo.
A first offense for striking produces a $12,172 fine, per league rules. The fine is expected to be officially announced on Saturday, per standard NFL in-season procedure.
A third-quarter play had ended when Kelce and Tart were still battling, and Kelce pushed hard on Tart’s left arm to disentangle them. Tart took a step forward, then delivered a hard shot that caused Kelce’s head to snap backward.
Tart was penalized 15 yards for unnecessary roughness, but he wasn’t ejected, likely because he had an open hand and not a fist when making contact.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid argued this week that Tart should have been ejected.
“I don’t understand that rule,” Reid said. “I guess it’s open-hand, fist, whatever, I don’t know. I don’t know what their decision was on that. But he definitely got hit in the head pretty hard, whether it was an open fist or a closed fist.”
Tart, 28, had one tackle in the game. He is in his sixth NFL season, his second with the Chargers. In 65 career games (37 starts), he has 3.5 sacks, 109 tackles, a forced fumble, two fumble recoveries, two interceptions and 11 passed defensed.
