Josh Norman fined for speaking out about officiating in Bengals vs Redskins game

Criticize the NFL and you will pay. Literally.

After complaining about an NFL official in his postgame press conference in London, Redskins cornerback Josh Norman has been fined $25,000 by the NFL. He is appealing the hefty fine.

Norman took offense to an official’s excessive flagging of his illegal hands to the face contact and pass interference up against A.J. Green. Most, if not all, of the flags were by the rules and deserved. Clearly, Norman did not feel that way.

“Who is official eighty-eight? I've gotta know," Norman said after the same. "You suck. I'm just being honest with you. I'm just being straightforward. He was terrible and I feel like he should be reprimanded.”

Norman wasn’t done there.

"I'm baffled by it, I really am,” Norman continued. “I just feel like they really need to sit down and look at that because the plays out there that was going on, I have never had seven flags on me in my entire life and I feel like he coulda had more than that. Every time he (Andy Dalton) threw the ball I feel like there was gonna be a flag."

Just a wild guess here, but, maybe Norman felt there was going to be a flag on every play because he couldn’t get his hands off of Green’s face, and knew he’d commit a flag-worthy offense on each passing down.

Norman has since said this after receiving notice of his fine:

Had Norman not been committing so many penalties, Green probably would have had an even better day than he had in London. Green recorded 121 yards on 8 catches against the Redskins, but not all of his grabs came against Norman.

Green didn’t dominate Norman, but he clearly won the matchup while the Redskins cornerback was too busy racking up flags and breaking NFL rules. Norman proved that if you talk badly about NFL employees, the league will fight back. And their form of fighting back is issuing a massive fine.

Three Bengals were also fined during the game, Dre Kirkpatrick ($18,231, facemask), Shawn Williams ($24,309, spearing; $9,115 facemask), Marquis Flowers ($9,115, unnecessary roughness).

What’s interesting is that Norman was not reportedly fined for any of his penalties in the game.

The London game was Norman’s third of the season in which he received a fine; those fines now total $83,620. Norman is expected to appeal this latest fine.