A hit on Baker Mayfield during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Week 9 Sunday night loss to the Chicago Bears went unflagged, but it did not escape the league’s attention. The NFL reviewed the play in the days that followed, and a decision has now been made, with the punishment landing on the Bears’ side.
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In its Week 9 Accountability Report, the NFL fined Bears defensive end Austin Booker $6,457 for use of the helmet when he tackled Mayfield right after the Bucs QB threw a pass deep-right to wide receiver Emeka Egbuka with 30 seconds left in the second quarter.
No flag was thrown, and the play ended as an incompletion. Tampa Bay still got its points shortly after as Chase McLaughlin kicked a 21-yard field goal as time expired. The NFL took a second look anyway and fined Booker for unnecessary roughness.
Reporter Kole Noble shared a clip of the incident on X, writing, “Austin Booker was fined $6,457 for use of the helmet from Week 9 for this hit on QB Baker Mayfield before halftime. Somehow, it wasn’t flagged.”
Booker, however, did draw a flag later for a facemask while sacking Mayfield with 7:19 left in the fourth quarter on a 3rd-and-8. The league left that one alone.
For Booker, such occurrences aren’t rare. He was fined four times for unnecessary roughness in 2025. Two of them were $5,818 fines for separate incidents in the Week 16 win over the Packers, and the second hit sent Jordan Love to the injury tent for concussion evaluation. Booker accepted his mistake in the first hit, but for the second hit, he put partial blame on Love for lowering his head during the play.
Head coach Ben Johnson addressed the second hit post-game, saying, “That’s the cost of doing business, unfortunately, sometimes. We’re certainly conscious of it; I know that’s not (Booker’s) intention. None of our guys play that way; that’s not how we’re coached, or we’re built.”
He added, “To me, that’s a tough one to coach sometimes. That’s the nature of being a pass rusher in this league. It’s not a hit that anybody wants to see in this game. It’s 100 percent a flag; I want to be clear on that.”
Moreover, Booker recorded another hard hit on Love in the playoffs, which cost him $46,371 for using his helmet, the Bears’ biggest fine of that season.
But coming back to Week 9, Booker was not the only Bear to get a letter from the league. Rookie wide receiver Zavion Thomas was fined $6,901 for unnecessary roughness. Chicago was leading 14-3 and had 1st and goal at the Tampa Bay 8 when Thomas turned a block on cornerback Jacob Parrish into a swat at his helmet well after the whistle. Officials saw it right away, and the flag moved the Bears back to the 21.
The penalty changed the drive. Caleb Williams forced a pass into double coverage on the very next play and was intercepted, which took the air out of Chicago’s momentum.
Coaches pulled Thomas aside on the sideline to correct him, and he never returned to the offense for the rest of the game. He did stay busy as a returner on special teams.
“Yeah, I don’t know that he played on offense after that,” Johnson hinted.
The Bears got the win and a week off, but the fines are a reminder that the league reviews plays long after the officials have moved on.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Also Get Hit With a Fine
The two Chicago players weren’t the only ones who got a bill. Tampa Bay rookie cornerback Keionte Scott was also hit with a $6,540 fine for use of the helmet. His came in the second quarter, when he hit Bears wide receiver Kalif Raymond, and just like Booker’s play, it drew no flag on the field.
The fine is a first for Scott, a fourth-round pick out of Miami who went 116th overall in the 2026 draft. He has appeared in all nine games for the Buccaneers this season and has four starts to his name. So the rookie now knows where the league draws its line, even if the officials missed it that night.
Not every questionable moment ended up costing someone money, though. Buccaneers rookie outside linebacker Rueben Bain Jr. avoided a fine for his hit on Bears wide receiver Luther Burden III. That play forced a fumble and left Burden with a concussion, and no flag was thrown.
Away from the fines, another storyline hung over the loss. Tampa Bay was flagged for five false starts on Sunday night, and Mayfield pointed to the Bears as at least part of the reason. According to him, left tackle Tristan Wirfs jumped when Chicago players yelled out Mayfield’s cadence.
“I don’t know,” Mayfield said. “The last one, I know they were barking out the cadence, which you can’t do. It’s tough for the refs to call that because they’re not right there at the line of scrimmage. They called that on Tristan, but you can’t do that.”
Week 9 had plenty of action that never showed up on the penalty sheet, and the league’s fines landed on both sidelines.