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The Bengals and their fans would probably like to forget about the Wild Card loss to the Steelers, but the NFL seems like they'd rather keep pouring salt on those wounds.
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The latest comes in the form of Steelers' offensive line coach Mike Munchak, who was originally fined $10,000 for pulling the hair of Bengals safety Reggie Nelson. According to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle, Munchak says that fine has since been rescinded.
Mike Munchak 'The NFL has rescinded my fine after reviewing the video' Munchak was fined $10,000 for allegedly pulling Reggie Nelson's hair
— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) March 14, 2016
Munchak told ESPN on Friday at Ohio State's pro day that he appealed the fine and told the league during the process that his grab of Nelson's long hair during the game Jan. 9 was inadvertent. A league spokesman said Friday that the NFL has no comment on coach or player appeals.
Munchak also said he tried to bear-hug Nelson to lessen the impact when Nelson flew into Pittsburgh's sideline on an attempt to tackle running back Jordan Todman.
It happened after a play in which Nelson was tackling Steelers running back Jordan Todman and ran into Munchak in the process, who grabbed Nelson to stop him as he ran onto the Pittsburgh sideline, but grabbed onto a handful of his dreads in the process.
Now the initial grab 'could' be incidental, but that second effort to whip Nelson by his dreads looks about as blatant as possible. Yet somehow the NFL decided this was worthy of a fine, but later decided it wasn't, which pretty much sums up how the NFL works. Munchak even caused the Steelers to be penalized for this move during the game.
Oh, and you can bet Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict isn't happy about this. According to Bleacher Report, Burfict went on a Twitter rant upon hearing this news but has since deleted those tweets, which read the following:
This is crazy now I know the @nfl loves the steelers!! smdh. I really don't care I'm defending my teammate..soo coaches are allowed 2 pull players hair I wish that happened 2 me.
It's hard to deny the NFL isn't showing at least a slight bit of favoritism toward the Steelers in this instance, but that shouldn't surprise anyone at this point.