Linebacker Dylan Cole isn’t just a key piece for the Houston Texans’ special teams and linebacking corps, but he is also one of the team’s “fine commissioners.”
An unofficial title, as Sarah Barshop of ESPN explains, the offensive line and linebackers have agreed on a rule: if any one from their position group is giving an interview, they have to give at least two shoutouts to teammates. Otherwise, he gets put into the fine category, and Cole, as one of the fine commissioners along with defensive tackle Brandon Dunn and guard Greg Mancz, has a list of the violators and fines in the back of his locker.
The worst violator is inside linebacker Benardrick McKinney
“He has the same thing that he says every time, and then he forgets,” Cole said. “I don’t know what lines he says, but he says the same lines every single time and then he forgets about us.”
While the fines are intended to be entertaining, always going towards a dinner, some position groups take them a little more seriously. For example, the defensive line will fine a member $250 if he is late to a meeting. Defensive line coach Anthony Weaver also keeps a spreadsheet with all of the fines listed.
“It’s not even looking like a dinner no” said Dunn. “It’s moved on to a trip.”
As long as that trip is taken in late February and not any earlier in the offseason, that will be fine with the Texans and their fans.
