The NFL emphasized on calling taunting penalties in situations where they shouldn’t have this season. This led to them getting back the “No Fun League” moniker, but we didn’t expect it to be THIS bad.
After a questionable start in terms of enforcing these penalties in Week 1, the league enforced a string of taunting penalties leaving fans angry and wondering how on earth would these players even be punished for mild celebrations directed at their opponent. While taunting has always been a 15-yard penalty, we are seeing these penalties being called more often all because players are talking smack to one another.
We saw Texans tight end Jordan Akins casually spinning the football on the ground during their game against the Browns. That was seen many times before, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Apparently, it’s a big deal to the NFL.
Bills cornerback Levi Wallace flashed the incomplete sign during the Bills’ 35-0 shutout win over the Dolphins. That’s common among players for when they force an incomplete pass, so that, again, shouldn’t be a big deal. The NFL, however, called that taunting anyway. How did Wallace follow it up? By picking off Jacoby Brissett on the very next play.
Bears strong safety Tashaun Gipson clapped in the face of Bengals wideout Ja’Marr Chase after the rookie dropped a pass on 3rd down during the Bears’ 20-17 win over the Bengals. Gipson was flagged for taunting, so, instead of a punt, the Bengals got a free first down.
Gipson told the media, “I just clapped, man. I don’t want to be out there if I can’t be happy for my guys when they make big plays. That’s what this game is about. It’s just adrenaline. It was costly. And that was something I just can’t do—put our team in that third down, and it’s hard to get off the field.”
In that same game, Bengals safety Vonn Bell was flagged for taunting ex-Bengals QB Andy Dalton after an incompletion.
Chargers tight end Jared Cook was called for one over a run-of-the-mill touchdown celebration, although it got called back because of an illegal shift penalty.
The most egregious case of a taunting penalty in Week 2 was during the Titans’ comeback win over the Seahawks, 33-30. While the Titans were down 30-23 and were seeking to tie the game, Ryan Tannehill launched a deep pass to AJ Brown that landed incomplete. Seahawks cornerback DJ Reed, who covered Brown on that play, got up, flexed while looking at Brown, and walked away. Then came the 15-yard taunting penalty, moving the Titans into Seahawks territory.
What about in Week 1, when Buccaneers center Ryan Jensen said something to Cowboys defensive lineman Carlos Watkins? It probably wasn’t worth a penalty. Watkins hit Jensen in the facemask and got penalized for it, but since the NFL wants to emphasize on more taunting penalties, those penalties were offset. Those penalties were nowhere near the same level as each other.
And these penalties were not limited to just the regular season. Think back to the preseason, where Colts running back Benny LeMay rushed for a first down, kept his legs moving when several defenders were on him, until he was taken down 14 yards past the line of scrimmage. He looked down at Panthers linebacker Josh Bynes, whom LeMay carried 10 yards on the run, and unleashed a yell before walking away. Then he got called for a taunting penalty. While the Colts got the first down, they are one yard short of where the play began.
Such instances where the NFL wants to point out as taunting where there is “excessive” banter is something that will get players flagged now, with the first violation being a $10,300 fine, with the fine increasing to $15,450 for the second violation.
This is what the NFL wants. Every success at the direct expense of the opponent must be celebrated without showing up said opponent. This was pushed by the league’s competition committee, where Giants owner John Mara was driven to push for a rule change. That may be one factor on why he was booed loudly during Eli Manning’s jersey retirement ceremony, although there are other factors outside of that. Mara said back in August:
That’s something we discuss every year in the competition committee. We get kind of sick and tired of the taunting that does go on from time to time on the field. We tried to balance the sportsmanship with allowing the players to have fun and there’s always a fine line there, but none of us like to see that.
It’s just a question of whether you can have rules that can be enforced and without taking the fun out of the game too, but nobody wants to see a player taunting another player. I know, I certainly don’t. I think the rest of the members of the competition committee feel the same way, too.
The reception for the emphasis on taunting penalties has been universally negative. Current NFL players hate it. Former NFL players hate it. NFL fans hate it. Even reporters, TV personalities, and NBA players hate it, too.
By the way, that “competition committee” that Mara mentioned consists of 10 members handpicked by Goodell, and the committee has just one NFLPA appointee. The competition committee is comprised of Mara, Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones, Packers president Mark Murphy, Falcons president Rich McKay, Ravens executive Ozzie Newsome, Broncos president of football operations John Elway, and head coaches Mike Tomlin, Sean Payton, and Ron Rivera. See something here? Goodell does not care about player representation. Browns center and NFLPA President JC Tretter spoke on this issue:
Players are at the table, where we make our opinions known and our recommendations heard, but we get a token vote. Still, we take the time to show up and take part in these decisions because ultimately, we are the ones playing the game, yet the NFL has the votes to push through whatever rule they want.
And let’s not forget that in 2017, Mara admitted that the reason that the Giants were not considering signing Colin Kaepernick wasn’t because of offensive schemes or QB depth, but because he received lots of “emotional mail” from Giants fans opposed to a move on signing a QB who organized a peaceful protest. However, this is the same Mara who not only kept kicker Josh Brown on the roster after he was arrested for domestic violence, but then gave him a raise after signing him to a two-year deal. He wasn’t cut from the Giants until public outrage arose. From here, it can be said that Mara has a history of not caring about anything dealing with integrity or rules.
Then you get Bill Belichick, who told WEEI Boston, “In general, I don’t really think there’s a place for taunting in the game. I think that’s poor sportsmanship and it leads to other things. It leads to retaliation, and then where do you draw the line? I think the whole idea of the rule is to kind of nip it in the bud and not let it get started. I’m in favor of that. I think that we should go out there and compete and try to play good football and win the game on the field. I don’t think it’s about taunting and poor sportsmanship. That’s not really my idea of what good football is.”
This is the same Belichick who told his team, “There’s nothing wrong. In fact, you should be excited when you make a play. Hell, look at all the work you put into it? … And when you can show that picture visually to your opponent, that’s what intimidation is.”
But where did this begin? Or should we all say, who did it begin with? Think back to Tyreek Hill’s pre-touchdown celebrations, who irked more than one member of the rule-emphasizing establishment.
Two league sources familiar with the conversations between the members of the NFL’s competition committee pinned a large part of this to tamp down taunting on Hill, who has frequently thrown up “deuces” at defenses that he torched away for touchdowns. That, along with some backflips in the end zone last season, fueled the competition committee’s momentum for the new taunting rules.
One of those two sources said, “[The backflips], when you’re watching that and gesturing, it’s not a part of a touchdown celebration. It’s obviously taunting. It’s purposely being disrespectful and you saw in the Super Bowl where it came back. A guy retaliates because he saw that it was being disrespectful and then now he’s getting him back.”
This is a reference to when Buccaneers safety Antoine Winfield Jr. threw the deuces back in Hill’s face when the game was all but won by the Bucs. Winfield was later fined for the move, which is an easy call for the league because that drew a penalty on the field and he literally called it “taunting” afterwards: “The taunting, man it’s something I had to do. When we played them earlier [in the season], Hill went off on us. He backflipped right in front of my face and gave me the peace sign. So it was only right that I gave him the peace sign right back to him. It felt amazing to be able to do that.”
This may be a showing of revenge from Winfield on Hill, but it was costly because it boosted the momentum for the NFL’s competition committee members on the talks on the new taunting penalties.
Because the pre-touchdown gestures were not part of what the league considered a sanctioned celebration, some competition committee members questioned why flags were not thrown, and there was no good answer, but it was clear that Hill’s pre-touchdown celebrations became a larger piece of why taunting became a bigger conversation. Not because of his “deuces” gesture, but because of his backflips into the end zone, as shown in Weeks 12 and 13 of last season.
While the touchdown against the Broncos was negated because of a penalty, Hill’s backflip into the end zone received wider attention, leaving an impression on more than one committee member. On the play, he came to a complete stop, paused after turning around, then performed his flip after looking at Broncos defenders. While the officials in the game sorted out a holding penalty, the lead referee announced to the crowd and the national television audience “there was no foul for the flip into the end zone.” That apparently wasn’t sitting well with a few competition committee members, especially after Andy Reid told reporters that “unless it’s taunting, it’s not a penalty.”
What’s even more disturbing about the taunting penalties enforced this season is that the NFL is satisfied with nine of the 11 taunting penalties called in the first two weeks of the season, as said by a person of knowledge of the league’s plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak in the matter. He declined to reveal which two were incorrectly enforced.
While the NFL has no immediate plans to request the competition committee to review the matter for possible modification of taunting enforcement, league officials said that they are not discouraging celebrations, but wanted to ensure that players display good sportsmanship and provide a good example to future generations.
The NFL rulebook defines taunting under the category of unsportsmanlike conduct as the following: “Using baiting or taunting acts or words that may engender ill will between teams.” If a player has two taunting penalties, then he will automatically be ejected from the game.
It gets worse because the NFL has no plans to modify their enforcement of the taunting rule, per Mark Maske of The Washington Post, as they said that the enforcement of the penalties is “going as planned” despite all the negative criticism, and thinks that that the players “will adjust” to the rule. But not everyone is on board with that.
This is not the first time that the NFL competition intervened early in the season. Three years ago, the competition committee intervened early in the season, at the invitation of the league aver a series of controversial calls, to modify the application of the rules of roughing the passer. The committee reviewed the calls and thought that the officials were misapplying a new directive that prohibits defenders from landing on a QB with most or all of their body weight. There were no in-season changes to the rule, as they instead directed officials to adjust how they would enforce it.
Such a similar intervention is not in the talks at the moment. Per two people familiar with the inner workings of the league, the competition committee members have not discussed the taunting enforcement since the season began. The league did not ask the committee to review the enforcement, as one of the people said, and added that there was “no issue yet.” The other said that it is “probably too early” to make any adjustments but said that the enforcement “has been fine so far.”
The NFL’s officiating department could also review these controversial calls and send revised instructions to game officials. But there is no telling on if it works. League officials are stressing that this is not a new rule, but is a point of emphasis for officials to enforce an already-existing rule. Ron Rivera said in a news conference, on Tuesday at the conclusion of Week 2:
The idea behind the taunting rule is to prevent the bigger things. We’ve had this example where one guy taunts a guy and then the guy comes back for a little payback. And the next thing you know, you’ve got a big fight on your hands. You’ve got guys coming from left field, hitting each other. And that’s really what, to me, I think the referees are really looking for. They’re just trying to get it quieted down. You can do the celebration. They sent a tape out and explained exactly what’s taunting and what’s not. And I think if you look at the tape and you follow the tape, then it makes sense. I’m all for the celebration.
Mike Tomlin had a similar response to Rivera: “All of us, to a man, acknowledged that that’s something that needed to be addressed. … The players will adjust. They always do. They better adjust quickly, specifically speaking of mine.”
Pete Carroll, on the other hand, was more skeptical, after DJ Reed fell victim to the new taunting rules: “I really respect what they’re trying to get done. They would like the game to not have that in it. It’s a hard transition. … I think we’ve opened up a bit of a can of worms. And so we’re going to have to find our way through it here as we go. … It’s a good thought. It’s just hard to manage it.”
The problems did not arise from the decision on asking officials to enforce the rule as written, but from the failure of the league to properly explain this situation before the news emerged from the league telling the officials to enforce the rule. The goal is to prevent the player on the wrong side of the taunting rule from looking for ways to settle it down later, possibly with a cheap shot or a hit. That could escalate things, eventually leading to a ruckus.
Now, flags for taunting dropped noticeably in 2019 and 2020. There was a total of 11 taunting penalties in 2020 and nine in 2019, while there was an average of 30 taunting penalties from 2013 to 2018. However, in the opinion of coaches and owners, the dip in the taunting penalties did not reflect a fall in the frequency of taunting that they saw. The players were warned this was coming, as a league video in training camp explained the new rules and the points of emphasis.
The NFL did not tell them directly on these penalties, but this is how the NFL wants to change player behavior—by asking officials to call anything remotely close.
The league said that there are other ways to change player behavior by way of over-officiating regular season games, but that would require a change in the way the NFL’s officiating department would work the training camps. Working with players and coaches in the span of several weeks, for instance, could set a tone in a way that doesn’t impact games, whether it be preseason, regular season, or postseason.
You can also argue that the new taunting rules are racist. When white players get fired up or upset, it is instantly viewed as “passion and love for the sport.” But when Black players do the same, it is “out of control” and it “crosses the line.”
The racial dynamics of the NFL workforce mirrors that of corporate America. The league’s workforce—the players—are overwhelmingly Black. Middle management—coaches and coordinators—have some minorities. The executives—owners and front offices—are virtually all white, meaning that the players are never adequately represented in the meetings that affect them the most.
So, yes, these new taunting penalties are not only ridiculous, but also racist, and it can be applied to anything. Taunting is the latest rule in play so that the NFL makes sure that the “inmates don’t run the prison,” as how the late Bob McNair would put it. And it’s only a matter of time until one of these calls ends up affecting an important game on the big stage, say, the Super Bowl, which will lead to more outrage from fans and players.
As for now, this is a short-term issue, as the NFL is wanting players to make adjustments, as will officials once the NFL determines that the point was made. But so far, this is not a good look on the NFL.
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