ne of the things I find most objectionable and stupid about modern sports is how much of an effort most leagues go to to prevent any of their players from every celebrating, taunting, cheering, rubbing it in, etc, while on the field.  What happened to the good old days of dancing in the endzone, pointing at someone you just denied a basket, or pumping your fist after a great play?  It's like the leagues all want some sort of cyborg players on the field, ones who will experience no discernable emotion after making a great play.  No one wants some pro wrestling-esque pantomime, but what's wrong with some honest emotion and taunting? It adds fun to the game and spice to rivalries.

Since there are constant articles about various sports leagues punishing players for celebrating in anything resembling an interesting way, I'm never short of news items to comment on, of this topic.

The most recent ones are added on top of this page.

January 31, 2004

In other football news sure to annoy me, the NFL commissioner's annual report on the game strongly states that they'll be increasing the penalties and fines for players who actually spend more than three seconds celebrating a touch down, as well as trash talking, or generally doing anything of any interest on the field. Since you know, it's okay for the fans to cheer, but the players certainly shouldn't enjoy themselves in any way, or do anything to get the other fans or players charged up to turn up the intensity of the game.

December 25, 2003

In the NFL's continuing quest to keep anything exciting or interesting from ever happening, here are a couple of related "fine for celebration" news stories.

The first was a receiver for the New Orleans Saints who came up with a novel celebration, and broke it out after making his second touchdown catch of a game on primetime, Sunday night.

After catching the second of four touchdown passes against the New York Giants, Horn was handed a flip-phone by teammate Michael Lewis, who pulled it out from under the padding used to protect the goal post.

Horn was still wearing his helmet when he punched in numbers, put the phone to his earhole and began speaking into it for a few seconds.

"I had told my kids to be at home, watching the game, and I told my momma, 'Mom, if I score the second one, I'm going to get my cell phone out,' " Horn said.

He called, he talked briefly, he hung up.  Clever idea, not violent or showing up the other team or anything like that.  So of course his coach bitched about it, all the old boring football analysts bitched about it, yet he was on ever highlight show and all of the fans loved it and wanted to watch more football to see more interesting stuff like that.  The NFL fined him $30,000 for it, of course, since they don't like it when a player does anything interesting or inventive or exciting.

Then the week after that, last weekend, the Houston team was on TV, and they scored and two guys performed an homage:

In the third quarter against the Titans, Carr scrambled right and hit Corey Bradford for a 20-yard touchdown strike. Carr and McKinney inspected the padding around the goal post, pretending to look for a cell phone like the one Joe Horn used to make an end zone call on Dec. 14 in a rout of the Giants.

There was no phone, and Carr waved his hand below his chin, as if to tell the crowd the Texans didn't practice such stunts. It appeared to be all in fun -- until the league responded.

"That's the league being the league," McKinney told the Chronicle on Wednesday. "We'll appeal it and probably get our money back. If we do have to pay, I think David should have to pay. I was just an innocent bystander. We were just having fun. I don't really care. It was still fun. You have to spice things up every now and then."

Needless to say, it got on every highlight show and everyone loved it... except for the old analysts who bitched about it, and the league, who is probably going to fine them for it.

The entire theory behind what the league does in the NFL seems to be to suck the fun out of the game.  No celebrations are allowed, no group dances, no taunting, no playing to the fans, no threatening gestures, etc.  It's like they want robot football; play full speed until the instant the play is over, and then turn off all emotions, ignore the 60,000 screaming fans who paid quite a bit of money to see the game in person, and walk back to the huddle or the sidelines without reacting to anything that just occurred.

The NFL always fines guys for any sort of taunting; a few years ago it became cool to lay a big hit on someone, and then drop and pound the turf like you were counting them out.  I thought that was damn clever.  Needless to say, it was immediately banned.  Then guys got into doing a throat slashing gesture when you just cut the other team's heart out, and of course that was banned.  The receiver who pulled out the cell phone did one earlier this year where he pantomimed shooting a machine gun, and blowing away a couple of his teammates who fell down dramatically.  They were fined.

No one wants guys doing little dances and mugging like mimes every single time they get a first down, but I think the league is being stupid by trying to suck all the celebratory joy out of things. Their logic seems to be that players will get angry or feel hurt, and um... so?  You're supposed to get angry and feel hurt, and you're supposed to want revenge.  What's wrong with being pissed and wanting revenge on the field, in a violent physical game?  If some little fuck on the other team is going on and on, he'll get what's coming to him sooner or later, whether it be a late hit or cheap shot, and he'll learn, or he won't. And whichever way it goes, you've got a rivalry and the fans love it.

There really aren't any rivalries left in football.  True, most of that's due to free agency and the salary cap, which results in most guys changing teams about every other season.  You don't want to get into too big of a feud with guys you might be playing with next season. But I don't care if all of the players hate each other.  In fact I'd like it; there'd be some more reason to watch a game if you thought it was personal.  The only rivalries now are between fans of various teams; the players are largely ignorant of it since after all, they're professionals who are just doing their job.  There's no emotion or personal dislike for anyone, and that's how the league wants it.  I mean god forbid that the best players in a very dangerous sport where the average career is about 2 years should celebrate anything they accomplish, right?

On the other hand, look at hockey, and professional wrestling.  Wrestling is nothing but grudges and hatred and overacting, but since everyone knows it's fake the audience is pretty much limited to dumb angry teenaged boys, and adults with their same mindset.  On the other hand there's hockey, and it's not fake, but there are lots of fights and it gets very personal, with most every team employing one or two thugs who are nothing but cheap shot artists and who are there to do nothing but fight or try to hurt other players.  Every year one or two star players are seriously injured by some thug, and having your stars so often off the ice hurts fan interest, even if the fans are dying to see the thug or someone else on his team get killed the next time the teams play.

Of course wrestling is way down from its brief peak of popularity several years ago, and hockey is steadily losing ratings in the US as teams constantly move and go bankrupt, while football is more popular than ever and the highest rated sport on TV in the US. So perhaps most fans really do prefer emotionless robotic play and as few celebrations as possible, and the league is right to try and enforce that?

November 27, 2002

As expected, the brief flare up of excitement after the Green Bay/Tampa Bay game on Sunday, where the coach and player nearly got into a fight, has been quickly cooled almost to nothing, with the league doing all they can to turn off the controversy.  A couple of assistant coaches had been heard talking about getting some revenge on Sapp, whose cheap hit well away from the play had caused a severe hip injury to their player, who is out for the season.  Since personal vendettas and emotions would be a horrible thing to have creep into a football game, the league is putting the clamps on it.

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