Patriots News: Bill Belichick, DeShon Elliott, and Devin McCourty

Dolphins safety DeShon Elliott is fined for two illegal hits from Week 8 matchup

Divisional games are always going to be tougher games for all teams in the league and will likely be filled with hard-hitting and trash-talking due to the familiarity the rosters have with each other.

That's what we got in the Patriots matchup with the Dolphins in Week 8 last Sunday, with the worst of all being a helmet-to-helmet hit on DeVante Parker, resulting in a concussion and missing today's game against the Commanders.

The play was not penalized at the time despite the hit fitting the definition of what the penalty is for, angering fans and Parker's teammates.

Another moment was a hit on Rhamondre Stevenson in the second quarter. It wasn't seen as horrific in real-time as the instance with Parker, but people took notice of it because it was by the same Dolphins player in both situations: DeShon Elliott.

The tackle in Stevenson was also not flagged, but the NFL came out with a list of fines on Saturday afternoon, and Elliott was slapped with two for his unnecessary aggressiveness in last week's game.

Although that's all good and dandy, even though it's not doing anything to truly prevent these types of hits in the future, Elliott was fined more for the tackle on Stevenson ($43,709) than the hit to the head on Parker ($9,833), which many took issue with.

Considering Parker was dazed and immediately ruled out for the remainder of the game, it doesn't make much sense that the fine for that hit was significantly less than the tackle on Stevenson. It also begs the question of what type of message the NFL is trying to send with such a discrepancy between the two hits.