Brooking fined for hit on McNabb

Oakland — Quarterbacks aren’t the only ones who know something about being blind-sided. Falcons linebacker Keith Brooking was surprised to hear after the game Sunday in Oakland that he’d been fined $5,000 for his hit on Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb last week in Philadelphia.

There was no penalty called on the play. Brooking said he hit McNabb in the shoulder, not in the helmet or with his helmet.

“If I had to do it all over again, I’d do the same thing,” said Brooking, who converged on McNabb on a blitz along with Curtis Lofton, who came up the middle. “I’m coming in on a hot rush. I got the back man-to-man — he was in the protection. I came around the corner. There was really absolutely no way I could have pulled off that because I was already committed to hit the quarterback.”