Clay Matthews on his fine for criticizing officials: I said what I had to say

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Clay Matthews initially joked when asked about his $12,500 fine for criticizing officials on Twitter.

“I got hacked,” Matthews said to laughter, via video from Lindsey Thiry of ESPN. “Am I the first person to get fined on Twitter?”

As a matter of fact, the Rams linebacker probably is.

Officials erroneously penalized Matthews for a roughing the passer penalty in Week Five, setting him off.

“The storyline for the 2019 season continues to be the refs inability to make the accurate and correct calls week in and week out,” Matthews tweeted after the Lions-Packers game. “Al Riveron continues to blindly side with his refs and the current status quo. Something must change! Zero accountability.”

Matthews explained his thinking this week when he returned to practice from a broken jaw.

“I sat on it for about an hour I didn’t want to be saying anything too emotional,” Matthews said. “As a recipient of four roughing the passer calls over the past two years that all had the league come back to — the Packers last year and the Rams this year — and say they got it wrong, I felt just I had to say something and kind of put it out there. As a fan of the game, too. But you know I said what I had to say and most people agreed with me.”

Matthews said he is appealing the fine.

“I felt I was very politically correct with my answer,” Matthews said. “It wasn’t one of those where I used foul language or anything. But we’ll see how it goes. Again, there’s always with the current state of officiating more so how it’s being talked about, there’s always that possibility that will get squashed. It is what it is.”