Referee's calls confounding Eagles' defensive backs

"I'll tell you this. I'm not going to worry about a fine. I'm not going to play dirty, but I'm going to play the game the way it's supposed to be played."

Resolute, and with a bit of bravado, Eagles safety Quintin Mikell swore his game would not change after teammate Ernie Sims was fined $50,000 for a hit in Game 7.

Then, Mikell lost his legs.

Mikell initially was called for unnecessary roughness against Colts receiver Austin Collie, a hit that knocked Collie out of the game. Mikell hit Collie from the front as fellow safety Kurt Coleman closed from the back side. Coleman's helmet collided with Collie's helmet and the ball flew free.

Collie was rolled off the field on a gurney.

Mikell also was rendered ineffective.

"I did have a little bit of a hangover after that hit," Mikell said. "I didn't agree with the call. I'd done everything I was supposed to do and I still got flagged.

"For a brief period, I was like, 'I don't even know how to play ball right now.' "

It showed.

Mikell was part of the coverage that gave up a 33-yard completion on the next play that set up a subsequent 6-yard touchdown run that cut the Eagles' lead to 16-14.

Mikell's head spun as he sat on the sideline bench, far away from his teammates, and reviewed those two plays.

He saw what he hit. Collie took two steps and tucked before contacted.

Mikell also feared for Coleman, a seventh-round pick playing extensively for the first time in place of Nate Allen, who was injured earlier. Coleman also is making $320,000 this season. The penalty later was issued to Coleman, not Mikell.

The NFL, on Monday, issued no fine. It instead issued a statement, which, to a degree, re-created history. The initial call was for hitting a defenseless receiver, but Collie appeared to have possession of the ball and therefore was not defenseless; and there was no helmet-to-helmet reference at any time from the officials.

Given the arbitrariness of the officiating and the resultant league reviews, Mikell prepared to keep Coleman out of the poor house.

"I felt bad. If they fined Kurt – he's a rookie. A seventh-round pick. I told him if he got a fine, I would help him with it," said Mikell, who will make more than $1.6 million this season.

Mikell, undrafted out of Boise State in 2003, made even less money as a rookie than Coleman does, and he knows what Coleman, facing a 16 percent pay forfeiture, had to be thinking.

"Being that young and having a fine like that, that's going to affect you every time out," Mikell said. "You're going to be thinking about that every time you go out there."

Certainly, Mikell thought about it, at least until the next Colts drive. He saw some of this teammates thinking, too.

"It's crazy. The refs . . . put it like this. Those kinds of calls can affect a lot more than just that play, or that drive. It can affect how a team plays. And how aggressive they are," Mikell said. "If you're out there, worried about it - which we hadn't been, to that point - it's like, 'I don't understand what I'm supposed to be doing out there.' "

Does he understand now?

"It's still unclear. I still don't know fully what we're expected to do," Mikell said. "We're just trained to separate them from the ball. The middle of the field is our territory. It's mano-a-mano out there. But, sometimes, the rules are a little sketchy."

Separating the player from the ball over the middle might be what Mikell is trained to do, but is the risk now worth the reward?

"I was frustrated because we had a forced fumble, and I recovered it, and I could have run that back," Mikell said. "We could've broken the game open."

At least Coleman isn't broke, period.

"I took a big sigh of relief, because that would've hurt," Coleman said. "I had some money set aside. I knew the next couple of weeks I'd be spreading my money a little bit thinner than I wanted to. I was preparing for the $50,000 hit."

He was grateful, too, that he wasn't hurt as badly as Collie, who lay on the ground for 10 minutes. After all, it takes two helmets to create a helmet-to-helmet hit.

"I was stunned for a second," Coleman admitted. "The good thing was, there was some time to collect my thoughts."

Now, with a few days to reflect, Coleman looks forward to his first start, on Monday Night Football, no less.

Resolute, with a bit of bravado, he said:

"You've got to play your style of football. The refs will make the call."

That sounds familiar. *