ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—Broncos receiver Brandon Stokley said the hardest part about getting ejected from the game last week in Philadelphia for making contact with an official wasn’t apologizing to his teammates.
That was actually rather easy compared to explaining the situation to his 6-year-old son, Cameron, who Stokley has recently been working with on being a good sport.
“It’s a good lesson for everybody to learn, especially myself,” said Stokley, who was fined $25,000 by the league Thursday for the incident. “You have to be able to handle yourself better in those situations and I didn’t handle myself very well. I paid the price for it.”
The 11-year veteran was upset over the lack of an interference call on a third-down play in the first quarter against the Eagles when his route was disrupted by a defender.
Seeing no flag, he sprinted down the field and started yelling at back judge Todd Prukop, who pointed for him to go to his sideline. As Stokley started to run off the field, he spun and swiped his right arm in frustration, inadvertently nicking Prukop’s hand.
Stokley knew at that instant he was going to be ejected.
“I look back and not a very smart thing to do,” Stokley told The Associated Press. “I’m an emotional player on the football field and I let it get the best of me at that time. I can’t let that happen again. I’ve got to be smarter about it.”
The third-down specialist said he’s apologized to the people he’s needed to address and hopes others won’t hold it against him.
“I think most guys in this locker room, that have played awhile, understand that football is an emotional game,” said Stokley, whose team is teetering on the brink of postseason elimination as they face Kansas City on Sunday. “Sometimes things like that happen.”
As for his son, he explained the incident quite carefully.
“That was probably the hardest one right there,” Stokley said. “He’s at that age where he’s very competitive, he wants to win all the time. We’re trying to work with him on being a good sport. It was a good lesson for him.”
Broncos coach Josh McDaniels acknowledged earlier in the week that the matter is closed.
“Brandon, very professional, felt terrible about not being able to help his teammates, our team, play the rest of the game,” McDaniels said. “He’s an emotional guy and just felt like there was a foul on the play. We’ll move on from that and understand what it was.”
