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Seattle Seahawks

Pete Carroll and Seahawks fined for excessive contact in OTA

Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, walking the sideline during the first half of Sunday’s game in Los Angeles, has been fined $200,000 for violating the NFL’s work rules on contact in the offseason. (Jae Hong / Associated Press)
Associated Press
Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, walking the sideline during the first half of Sunday’s game in Los Angeles, has been fined $200,000 for violating the NFL’s work rules on contact in the offseason. (Jae Hong / Associated Press)

NEW YORK – Seattle coach Pete Carroll has been fined $200,000, the Seahawks have been fined $400,000 and will lose a fifth-round draft choice for violating the NFL’s work rules on contact in the offseason.

The Seahawks will forfeit the draft pick in 2017 and also lose a week of organized team activities for allowing excessive contact in an OTA on June 6. That is prohibited by the labor agreement with the players’ union.

Seahawks players will be paid for the canceled sessions in 2017.

The league on Monday cited Carroll as “responsible for maintaining appropriate control over practices and intervening if prohibited conduct occurs.”

The decision was made after the league and the NFL Players Association independently reviewed the on-field practice video for June 6. Both sides agreed the Seahawks violated the no live contact rules.

This is the second time the Seahawks have been penalized by the league for violating offseason workout protocols. Seattle had two minicamp practices taken away in June 2015 for contact rules violations during the 2014 offseason. Seattle’s players were allowed to attend meetings, but were limited to just one day of on-field work.

Seattle made changes to how it went through organized team activities during the 2015 offseason, with the help of the NFL.

The Seahawks went as far as to have Jon Ferrari, the NFL’s manager of labor operations in the management council department, visit the team headquarters to meet with the coaching staff prior to the start of OTAs and go over instructional film to make sure the team was in compliance.