Was the hit a textbook hit? No. If so it wouldn't have ended up at the head.
Absolutely incorrect. You can't possibly believe that every hit to the head is the result of non-textbook technique.
If the hit was lower to begin with
Glad you brought this up. Take Pryor's hit and lower it 6 inches or so. Here is what results:
1) Pryor's head is now down. You can't lower your attack angle significantly and keep your head up. Now Pryor has limited vision of what he is hitting, his helmet becomes a missile and Pryor is in greater of suffering a neck injury. Nice.
2) Pryor's center of balance moves forward. This throws him off balance and limits his ability to pull up or make an effective tackle.
3) Instead of wrapping up around the waist, his arms and the bulk of his weight are now dangerously close to Favre's knees. Given the reaction to Brady's injury, maybe the league prefers that.
or wasn't angling upwards at all
Wasn't angling upward. When you hit with your head up, after impact your head is going to follow the path of least resistence...which is up. Pryor's feet stayed on the ground and his torso stayed level throughout the hit.
But the hit did end up hitting the head. And that was under Pryor's control. If the player getting hit appears injured that obviously makes them look closely, so a fine was inevitable on this one.
This is the part that drives people crazy...
Negative result.
Pryor was involved.
Therefore, Pryor had responsibility for the result.
Obviously Pryor didn't have to hit Favre. He could have stopped his pass rush. He could have retired from football before the game. If the league wants players to hit and hit the correct, textbook way, sometimes bad things are going to happen.
Since when did everyone here become Ray Lewis? I would rather have Favre (and by extension Brady) protected.
Brady has been hit this exact same way literally dozens of times without a fine being assessed. I don't know if Brady's height or smaller chin spared him from getting bloodied up. I do know that this fine didn't make Brady or any other QB any safer.