Golden Tate was fined $21,000 by the NFL for his block of Sean Lee, according to ESPNDallas.com and NFL.com. The report was subsequently confirmed by the Seahawks.

Players are notified of fines via Federal Express early in the week, but the league does not confirm the amount of those fines until Friday.

Seattle's players had Wednesday off so Tate was not available for comment. Tate did not confirm he had been fined, but using his Twitter account did re-Tweet several comments from fans disagreeing with the fine. One of those Tweets cited Tate's own words after the game: "If I didn't hit him then he would have hit my quarterback."

But word got out in Dallas, and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had stated he expected Tate to be fined for the hit.

"I'm sure they will," Jones said in Dallas' locker room after the game. "We saw the same thing you saw. That's certainly something we know or expect penalties and fines about."

Specifically, NFL rules have changed in recent years limited, limiting where a block can strike a defensive player who is in pursuit of an opponent and does not see the block coming. In that situation, the player in pursuit is classified as defenseless and can not be struck above the shoulders.

Tate said after the game he believed he struck his opponent in the chest.

However, the rule also limits striking the opponent with the helmet.

Coach Pete Carroll was asked about the block on Monday, the day after the game.

"I don't think he could have done it any cleaner," Carroll said. "It was very physical, but he didn't hit the guy in the head and he didn't hit him with his helmet, and he tried to not."

He was aware that there some people -- namely in the Dallas locker room -- who disagreed with that assessment.

"I understand there are some people who are staging a case for whatever the league's observations of this," Carroll said. "We'll be anxious to see how that goes."

According to a report in Dallas, the league decided it's going to cost $21,000.