"New England receiver Wes Welker has given the Dolphins headaches since the day they traded him in 2007. So when Miami linebacker Channing Crowder saw an opportunity to give Welker a headache with a hit two years ago, he pounced.

Helmet-to-helmet, the players collided. Welker temporarily left the game. Crowder came up feeling a couple of sensations, including dizzy.

But guilty? Hardly.

"I was excited," Crowder said Tuesday.

The NFL relishes that passion but is trying to reduce the head and neck injuries associated with it.

A handful of violent hits on what could be called Black and Blue Sunday led the league to say it could begin fining and suspending first-time offenders in helmet-to-helmet collisions. Which is where Crowder wonders if the league is losing its head.

"If they're going to keep making us go more and more and more like a feminine sport, we're going to wear pink every game, not just on the breast cancer months," Crowder said in a reference to the league's October awareness campaign.

One of the first to be fined was Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison. The NFL docked him $75,000 Tuesday for his hit on Cleveland receiver Mohamed Massaquoi. Harrison's hit on receiver Josh Cribbs was scrutinized but was deemed permissible.

Before the fine was announced, Harrison admitted that he tries to hurt opponents, albeit not permanently. With the Dolphins about to host the Steelers on Sunday, Harrison perhaps surprisingly has found allies in Miami.

"That's been like that since the day I started playing football," receiver Brian Hartline said. "I hope my defenders are feeling the same way as him."

They might want to keep their checkbooks handy. The NFL also fined Patriots defensive back Brandon Meriweather $50,000 for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Baltimore tight end Todd Heap. And Atlanta cornerback Dunta Robinson also was $50,000; he launched himself head-first to stop Philadelphia wideout DeSean Jackson. Both suffered concussions.

The previous norm for such violations was about $10,000.

"There needs to be changes," said Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and co-founder of the Sports Legacy Institute (SLI), a nonprofit launched to study the impact of traumatic brain injuries in sports. "People just aren't going to do well with those types of injuries. You're not going to keep your best players on the field."

The league obviously is catching on. Wednesday night in Boston, Nowinski and SLI will give NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell its "Impact Award" for the league's efforts to reduce concussions in youth sports.

Nowinski, whose career as a professional wrestler was cut short because of concussions, attended Sunday's game in Philadelphia and saw Robinson deliver the blow on Jackson."