Expect the NFL to Make an Example of Both Dom DiSandro and Dre Greenlaw

The 49ers’ linebacker and Eagles’ security director were both acting human, but the league has to enforce certain rules to avoid truly ugly situations.

I think the secret to a long, happy life is not disagreeing with folks such as Eagles chief security officer and senior adviser to the general manager Dom DiSandro, an absolute tank of a human being and a beloved, track-suit-wearing institution in the city of Philadelphia, so let’s take the the coming few words with appropriate caution.

What happened Sunday, when both DiSandro and 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw were ejected for a brief, shove-and-tap altercation on the sideline, will end up being something most of us can laugh about once the emotional temperature in the room reduces from boil to simmer (key word: most). The city of Philadelphia, which loves itself a good outsized folk hero, has no doubt been satiated. Big Dom shirts are incoming. The 49ers, who left Lincoln Financial Field with a kind of emotional exorcism after their quarterbackless loss there in the NFC title game last season, have their own banner to wave, too.

Greenlaw and DiSandro both acted human in the moment Sunday, but both were ejected :: Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports

Having recently profiled another team’s security director, and understanding the dynamics of both a close-knit NFL franchise and the adrenaline-tweaking chaos of an NFL sideline during live game play, I can easily see a situation where DiSandro’s primary responsibility—protecting players and coaches he loves dearly—overrode the common sense rule that anyone on an NFL sideline cannot make physical contact with a player on the field. Anyone with a best friend, child, pet or encroached-upon bottle of beer have felt the same paternal bear instinct.

Having also covered the Jets when their strength and conditioning coach reached his foot out toward the field during a punt return and tripped a player, I can also suggest that the NFL come out forcefully Monday and reiterate that this can never happen on a sideline again.

I am not comparing DiSandro to Sal Alosi, just so we’re clear. I liken DiSandro’s position a little bit to an NFL defender who somehow has to avoid the body weight rule when momentum and gravity have already gotten him to the point where it is mostly unavoidable. DiSandro was never going to physically hurt Greenlaw. While another Eagles player removed DeVonta Smith from an entanglement with Greenlaw, DiSandro looked over at the official to make sure the official was aware of the jostling, then put his right arm on the 49ers’ linebacker. It was at that moment Greenlaw threw a quick jab at the Eagles’ director of security.

And let’s be real, this was also—based on the laws of simple human frustration and reaction—an understandable reaction from Greenlaw, who spends 60 minutes every Sunday being battered and surely doesn’t welcome any unwanted contact from someone who isn’t wearing a green uniform.

However, Section 1, Article 8 of the NFL rule book exists for a reason. It states:

Non-player personnel of a club (e.g., management personnel, coaches, trainers, equipment personnel) are prohibited from making unnecessary physical contact with or directing abusive, threatening, or insulting language or gestures at opponents, game officials, or representatives of the League.

DiSandro should not have been there. Period. DiSandro shouldn’t have made contact with Greenlaw. Period.

If the league doesn’t freak out about this, it will have on its hands a massive problem of perception. The lot of us were able to see and contextualize this Sunday without an issue because we are not active football players, whose jobs continue to become more difficult with each passing day.

I would imagine that if Greenlaw, too, is not made an example of, the same protective niceties that should be extended to sideline personnel (who are not padded and are constantly under siege by players flying into their workspace at mach speed) will feel compromised.

The pace of the game, the condition of the fields, the expectations—especially for defensive players—to cover individuals with the tightness and intricacy of a French street mime while simultaneously not levying the slightest bit of contact or even offensive breath so as to elicit a penalty flag, all lead to a powder keg of emotions and frustrations each Sunday. To add into that, a sort of tacit approval of a nonplaying member of another team to be able to make physical contact with them despite explicit rules to the contrary, would be an outright middle finger. There was a kind of intimate line crossed.

Again, my goodness, don’t interpret this as some kind of high-horse finger-wagging. Please, everyone, before you criticize anyone who plays for an NFL team or works for an NFL team, understand what goes into it. Understand that there is no sleep, there is no life outside of football, there is only a series of 170-heart-rate events related to a grind of a job that takes up 98% of the calendar year. It is the saddest kind of situation in that both Greenlaw and DiSandro were being completely human in the moment, in a way we can all relate. But, understand also that the league will have to make an example out of both because when something like this occurs with malice, someone, either a member of the team’s nonplaying personnel attacking a player or a player attacking a defenseless member of sideline personnel, can get seriously injured.