The Sports Xchange

Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett has been fined $20,000 for his unnecessary roughness penalty on Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton.

Bennett’s penalty in last Sunday’s 27-24 loss also cost the Seahawks 51 yards on the play. Bennett knocked Dalton down three times during an Earl Thomas interception return late in the second quarter.

Thomas returned the pick 68 yards to the Bengals’ 31, but the penalty instead had the Seahawks starting at their own 18 with 54 seconds left. The Seahawks drove for a field goal that made it 10-7 at halftime.

“He just lost his mind a little bit and went after the quarterback too aggressively,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said Monday. “I’ll tell you this, in the old days in interception returns that was kind of the style that you go after the quarterback and you tried to get a shot on him. That was like back in the ’60s. Unfortunately, it was a real mistake.”

Bennett would not apologize this week about the play.

“I don’t think I was out of control,” Bennett said Wednesday. “I just hit the quarterback. Just because he’s the quarterback it’s a big deal. Carriers get hit all the time and knocked to the ground, but the only time people care — one, he’s the quarterback and he gets paid a lot of money and people just put this zoom-in screen on it so it becomes a big deal. But I can show you tons of plays where offensive linemen are jumping on guys all the time and it’s not a big deal.

“I hit him, he got back up. I pushed him back down, he got back up. I pushed him down again. What was I supposed to do, let him get back up?”

The fine is Bennett’s third of the year.

Bennett was fined $8,681 for being involved in a fight during the Week 2 game against the Green

Bay Packers. He was fined $17,363 during the preseason for a hit on Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith.