The NFL’s most fined teams

Article By Peter Welch

Last Updated: Mar 14^th, 2024

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What’s sport without a little friendly competition?

From the NFL’s opening games to the Super Bowl, it’s safe to say that we get our fair share of tense games and one-sided defeats every season.

But while competition is nice, it goes without saying that plenty of us can get caught up in the annoyance of poor plays and the exhilaration of potential victory.

Sometimes, things can get a little heated amongst the fans and on the field.

So, to find out just which NFL teams get the most frustrated and receive the most fines as a result, we’ve analyzed the NFL’s Fines and Suspension Data from the past five seasons and calculated just how much each NFL team has had to pay for on-field incidents.

Some of these fines were levied by the league and some were by the teams.

The most fined NFL teams in 2022

With the most recent Super Bowl having just wrapped up, there’s no better place to start looking at fines than with last year’s NFL season.

At the top of our list sit the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that was hit with $196,480 in fines. This is mainly because players like T.J. Watt and Myles Jack were fined 13,621 each for making obscene gestures mid-game.

In second, closely behind the Steelers, is the Denver Broncos, which racked up $187,565 in financial penalties. Despite not being top of the list, Broncos outside linebacker Randy Gregory earned a hefty fine of $50,000 for fighting on the field.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, receiving $135,905 in fines, come in third. Tampa's total is a substantial drop compared to the Steelers and Broncos but still fairly high. The Cincinnati Bengals came in fourth, with $118,959 in fines.

Fifth is the Dallas Cowboys. No strangers to fines, the Cowboys accumulated monetary penalties totaling $95,500, with their most notable fine being given to Dak Prescott for an overly enthusiastic celebration.

The least fined NFL teams in 2022

The team with the fewest fines by far in 2022 was the Arizona Cardinals. Arizona had to pay $10,609 in fines, and this was only because DeAndre Hopkins decided it would be a good idea to taunt an opposing player.

The second-least fined team was the Chicago Bears, with $14,993. Next on the list was the Buffalo Bills, which paid $20,387 in fines.

The Washington Commanders and Atlanta Falcons were next, with fine totals of $20,689 and $21,049, respectively.

Which NFL team has been fined the most in the last five years?

When looking at the amounts teams paid in fines last season, we couldn’t leave without discussing the biggest fines in the last five years and the reasons behind them.

While the Arizona Cardinals in 2019 paid no fines, some teams can’t go a year without being forced to pay up.

The Las Vegas Raiders are at the top of the list with a whopping total of $1,934,927 in fines. This is almost entirely because of Vontaze Burfict, who was fined $1,163,786 in 2019 for head-butting Indianapolis Colts tight end Jack Doyle, which resulted in Burfict being banned for the rest of the season.

Next is the Cleveland Browns, one of the two teams involved in the infamous 2019 brawl against the Pittsburgh Steelers. With a hefty $1,841,502 of fines paid in the past five years, it probably doesn’t come as a shock to hear $1,139,911 of this total came from said field fight – specifically because of Myles Garret's unsportsmanlike conduct, i.e., ripping off an opponent’s helmet and using it as a weapon against Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph.

The New York Jets have racked up $1,096,743 in fines to be third on our list. However, the biggest fine one of its players had to pay, didn't come from a fight or a penalty from a game, but rather from a practice incident. Kelechi Osemele, a guard, was told by his doctors that his shoulder injury required surgery and the Jets disagreed. So the team fined him for every practice he missed, and it added up to $570,588.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, the other team in the 2019 fight that put Cleveland at No. 2 on our list, is fourth. Pittsburgh accumulated $795,857 in fines over the past five years, most of which came from the fight against the Browns. Maurkice Pouncey, in particular, earned a hefty fine after getting between Garrett and Rudolph and punching Garrett multiple times.

Fifth on our list of the most fined teams of the past five years is the Cincinnati Bengals, which was hit with $741,457. Like the Jets, the biggest of these fines was handed to a player skipping practice. Offensive tackle Cordy Glenn was fined $200,000 by the team for refusing to practice after he said he had a concussion and getting into a confrontation with a member of the coaching staff.

So, now you know which teams to watch next season if you're trying to figure out which ones might have players to be fined.

And for more tips and odds on betting, don’t forget to visit Gambling.com today.