The NFL Institutes Taunting Rules
Just a couple of years after the NFL finally relented on the ridiculous boomer mentality restrictions on celebrations, it looks like we might be at the beginning of another version of the same slippery slope, now with taunting.
The NFL is going to crack down on taunting this year. The rules are based around safety, essentially using the argument that taunting heightens emotions, causes retaliation, injuries, and fights. On the surface, it looks somewhat reasonable. Obviously, fights are bad. They look bad. They have bad results. They are bad optics. They delay games. Any attempt to restrict the sort of fight that occurred between OBJ and Josh Norman from a few years ago sounds good, right? That was a horrid mess of a game and looked terrible for everyone involved. From a basic level, it makes sense to try and keep things civil.
But looking at it practically, what problem are they actually solving? This rule doesn’t feel necessary. The NFL does not have a taunting/fight epidemic. Fights are rare. Taunts aren’t even that common. The rule feels like an overblown response to the pretty reasonable taunt by Antoine Winfield Jr. in the Superbowl. That taunt didn’t start a fight and it was about as blatant a taunt as you can get, in the most emotionally charged game of the entire year. The most it got out of Tyreek was some trash talk. Nobody but the refs gave a shit that it happened outside already very bitter KC fans swallowing their misery in a lost cause. It still got talked about though, so it must be a problem! It isn’t. Taunting is not a problem. Few players do it, and they usually do it after plays where it feels warranted. Are we really about to flag players for flexing their biceps after making a good play? Seriously? Come on. This is a fucking waste of a rule.
Not only is it an unnecessary rule being applied to an almost non-existent problem, but I have extreme doubts the rule is written with explicit guidelines and will instead be subject to the subjective whims of the refs. If you are going to have a rule like this, there needs to be a clearly defined line that cannot be crossed, but taunting is a grey area, and what one ref might interpret as a taunt another might interpret as a celebration of self. If the refs actually decide to enforce this bullshit instead of willfully ignore it like they do other rules (lowering the head rule, the PI rule disaster), I can almost guarantee a team is going to lose a game because a player flexes in celebration vaguely in the direction of another player and the ref decides it’s a taunt, where earlier in the game they ignored a similar situation. The hypocrisy will be pointed out all over social media and the NFL will issue an apology but it won’t matter by then. It’ll be against the Lions. It’s always the fucking Lions.
You can just see it happening. Players do cool shit and celebrate all the time, but if an opposing player just happens to be within range of what a ref perceives as being a recipient, that player can be flagged. It’s stupid. It’s subjective, stupid bullshit. I see two outcomes for this rule. They basically completely avoid calling the penalty to begin with because taunts aren’t common and most are pretty tame (and we all forget the rule exists), or they get overly litigious and piss everyone off similar to how the celebration penalties got out of hand until the fans revolted. I think the former is more likely, thankfully, but we’ll see.
Most fights in the NFL are started by unnecessary hits and retaliation, not taunts. If we are going to legislate taunts, they need to be obviously vulgar acts that aren’t good for a family audience. I can understand not wanting to see crotch grabbing, jerk off motions or middle fingers on a broadcast, but again, this just isn’t very common to begin with, and we shouldn’t make flexing a bicep illegal just to ensure they don’t happen. It’s No Fun league bullshit. Taunts are a longstanding sports tradition and they have their own justice system. If you taunt a player, you have now exposed yourself to a retaliatory taunt when that player styles on you. You give a player a peace sign as you run by them? Now they give it to you after breaking up a pass. Justice has been served. Revenge is sweet. We do not need the refs involved, all that does is make everything worse. Let them play.
The PFF video shows 3 common things:
– Get right up in someone’s face
– [Do thing]
– Stay in their face as they try to walk away
If someone simply wants to flex their biceps, they should easily be able to avoid launching themselves into their opponent’s grill in the process. I’m not for or against the rule, but if a player is truly just trying to celebrate, it should be an easy penalty to avoid.
If they can just make the stupid Michael Irvin first-down-finger-point a taunt, that would be AWESOME. We all know it’s a first down, we don’t need you redundantly pointing it out again! *shakes fist*
http://sports-kings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Michael_Irvin-405×494.jpg
This is going to be like (x) thing officiating is going to focus on that we’ve had in years past. They’re gonna make a big stink of it in preseason and joint practices so that it sticks in the front of everyone’s mind. Then when the regular season starts it’ll hardly ever be called because the end result will be largely self policing.
Maybe for the Colts player, but for the Browns player in the second part of the video? He gets tackled, gets up and spikes the ball sorta in the players direction, then briefly looks at him. He doesn’t get in his face, the spike is suggestively in the defender’s direction, and he does the “athlete glare” at him. Plus, the video is in super slow motion, so in real time his transgressions happened so much faster and didn’t look nearly as blatant. If I saw that in-game, I would absolutely not flag that. Some refs will. Some refs wont. That’s a problem.
I agree the 2nd instance is less clearcut, but it should still be super easy, barely an inconvenience to celebrate whilst – and at the same time – avoiding the gray area.
Want to spike the ball? Make sure you’re not glaring in someone’s face and don’t drive it into the ground at his feet.
If they follow the basic gist of the video (i.e., focus on players clearly targeting an opponent when pulling off their move) it’s going to be easy to avoid, and if they land in the gray area, it’s probably their own fault. Unlike PI, holding, and tackling rules, this should not be a tough bullet to dodge, but it’s totally fair game to question whether they should need to.
The very fact that there is a grey area is a problem because the NFL is bad at subjective rules. PI is a subjective rule that the refs fuck up pretty much all the time. Players are not going to be consistently called on this because they weren’t consistently called on it when it was the celebration rule. I don’t think it’s right to put all the pressure on the players to conform to a stupid rule that only exists to address a non-existent problem.
I hope after the opening kickoff of the first game of the season both teams flex on each other like it’s the Mr. Universe finals. Benches too. I want to see the season start with 106 offsetting penalties.
That would actually be hilarious.
There’s a big difference between celebrating and being a jerk. I’m fine with the NFL going after taunting, as long as they restrict themselves to actual taunts as Big Blueberries says. That said, I do agree that most fights happen because of dirty play — and also the refs not doing anything about it. The Norman-OBJ fight happened after a few no-calls on PI and unnecessary roughness by Norman on OBJ, not because of any taunting
its been years and we still dont understand what a catch is (and what proper sack is) how are they planning to be consistent with this call?
Reggie White in a Packers jersey, and not an Eagles one?
That’s the most blasphemous thing in this comic.
Thank you
I don’t know if it should be penalized this harshly. But on this issue, i have boomer mentality without being a boomer. I would prefer it very much if players abstained from doing it.
Is that a withered fig tree I see
Is that what that is? I noticed Dave always puts a houseplant on the floor in his living room scenes, and I wondered why Jesus had the saddest looking one.
Like Dave was saying there’s no way this will be called consistently and if it’s not ignored a bad call for it will lose a game for a team. This is just a stupid decision by the NFL
Lions/Packers game, calling it
if not the lions, then the chargers, for sure. i hopw it is responsible for the charger’s upcoming 8-8-1 record this year
It would be a Lions thing to just happen to the Lions. It would be a Chargers thing if it costs them a game.
I also think it’s telling that everyone is up in arms about Winfield taunting Hill in the Super Bowl, but not that he was doing the EXACT SAME THING that Hill did to Winfield in the first Bucs/Chiefs game of the season, where Hill roasted the Bucs D. But everyone was cool with that — either because Hill is a star or because Winfield was a rookie. Nobody said boo about it until it was the rookie taking the star to school, and doing it in the big dance.
I think a lot of people didn’t realize it was retaliatory justice by Winfield because plenty of people watched the Super Bowl who didn’t see the regular season game between the Bucs and Chiefs. The other thing that might be causing the difference is Tyreek did his move during the play, while Winfield did his directly after it.
I wouldn’t flag either one because it was harmless trash talk but the rule might differentiate that difference
I’m actually interested how that aspect is going to be enforced. Are they going to start enforcing taunting during the play? They do in college.
Pretty much the first part. Also very likely that there were a lot of stodgy, old farts that hate celebrations in general watching since it’s the Super Bowl. They probably didn’t take very kindly to it because “muh integrity” or something like that. Winfield had a much larger audience in general, so there was a higher chance more people would be angered by it.
I’m actually interested how that aspect is going to be enforced. Are they going to start enforcing taunting during the play? They do in college.
15 yards is also super excessive. This rule is going to decide a handful of games a year and people are going to be pissed.
Why does the NFL add hyper-subjective penalties when people are already jaded about inconsistency of officiating?
Let them taunt and get in each other’s faces. It makes the game fun and more personal to the players.
of course jesus would have a fuckin tebow jersey
The clipboard jesus jersey absolutely killed me
Dave, I do not know what you have planned for next week but we need a continuation of the Uncle Drew-esque/A-Team “Im in” compilation of Aaron Rogers trying to get the Packers to hire old dudes to get the band back together.
Missed opportunity: should have said “Oh for Dad’s sake, let them play.”