At roughly the same time Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen was clearing the NFL’s concussion protocol, the man who laid the hit on the second-year player found out his fate. New England Patriots cornerback Jonathan Jones will not be fined for the hit that ended Allen’s Week 4 game.
#Patriots DB Jonathan Jones, whose hit landed #Bills QB Josh Allen in the concussion protocol, was not fined, source said. It was determined Jones turned his shoulder to stop the runner (who is not defenseless), while the runner is being tackled, falling forward and down.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 5, 2019
In this case, Allen is a runner and not a QB. If Jones needs to, ya know, tackle him, he is allowed to do that. If it was any other player running in the open field, that hit probably wouldn’t have even been flagged. We detailed the entire case for not ejecting Jones and not suspending him in our full article here.
While Bills coaches and players said the hit was over the line, they probably saw the same thing on replay that we did. This is a good no-fine by the league. They might be trying to legislate this type of hit out of the game, but as the rules are now, it was the right call.