Keanu Neal on His Helmet-to-Helmet Hit on Jordan Matthews: “I Thought It Was a Clean Hit”

The boos reverberated quickly inside Lincoln Financial Field when no flag was tossed on a hit that was so vicious, it literally bent Jordan Matthews’ facemask.

The hit in question was this one by Atlanta Falcons rookie safety Keanu Neal, which came on a 3rd-and-12 at the 10:50 mark of the fourth quarter of the Philadelphia Eagles’ 24-15 win on Sunday.

Clear penalty @AdrianFedkiw pic.twitter.com/db0DfG2mYe

— Philly Influencer (@PHL_Influencer) November 13, 2016

Matthews was perturbed about the hit after the game. Neal, however, thought it was clean.

“Never do I ever attempt to hit someone in the head,” he said following the game via USA Today. “That’s not the type of player I am. Coach (Dan Quinn) always talks about the strike zone. You guys know I am a physical player, but I’m not trying to hit the dude in the head. They didn’t call a flag. I don’t think I hit him in the head, but I didn’t attempt to hit him in the head. I thought it was a clean hit. We’re big on the strike zone and in the National Football League they’re big on head-to-head collisions and targeting fouls. I try my hardest to make sure my hits are legal.”

Falcons head coach Dan Quinn had his safety’s back.

“That’s just the way he’s taught in the strike zone is where we’re going to try and hit someone absolutely as hard as humanly possible,” Quinn said. “If there’s a hit to the head, then we didn’t lower our strike zone quite low enough. I can tell you he (Neal) is clearly becoming a very physical safety, but by no means is he taught to go up high or do anything that’s out of whack. The leverage tackling that we do, we want to absolutely throw fastballs in that strike zone. If that target is on point, I’ll applaud that hit as loud as I can.”

The problem is the target wasn’t on point. Neal led with his helmet and hit Matthews in the facemask. I understand that the action is moving at a ridiculous speed and it’s extremely difficult to make a decision on a bang-bang play like that, but the officials blew this one.

At least it didn’t cost the Eagles the game.