New NFL rule changes taking the fun out of football? Not so fast!
By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist
The following is speculation based on nothing more than some personal experience, a bit of guesswork and, hopefully, somewhere mixed up in it all, a somewhat relevant comparison to the National Football League.
OK, here it goes.
In many schoolrooms across the country, I’m postulating, there is at least one kid who falls into the category of the imaginative prankster. Perhaps they’re too smart for the coursework. Maybe they bore easily. Either way, their mental energy needs an outlet, and they exercise it by playing a joke on the teacher with Ferris Bueller-like chic.
In that same class, there are sure to be a couple of kids whose response to such things is to pour cold water on the fun by trying to thwart the culprit or by ratting them out to the long-suffering teacher or the principal, which, depending on the severity of the prank, is probably (and boringly) the fair thing to do.
And then there’s everyone else, who wouldn’t be game to pull off the stunt in front of such an audience but do take a guilty pleasure in admiring its execution and definitely won’t be turning their eyes away from what’s happening.
If you fall into the category of "everyone else," chances are you might also have some distinct views on the NFL’s freshly announced decision to clamp down on taunting, a move revealed this week in its annual rule change and points of emphasis video.
In a clear indicator of how it wants players to behave and officials to officiate, the league offered a reminder (with examples) of how certain actions deemed to purposefully embarrass or belittle an opponent will result in penalties or even disqualification from a game.
"We saw an increase in actions that are clearly not within the spirit and intent of the rule," the video reported. "Game officials have been instructed to strictly enforce the taunting rule. Players and coaches are reminded that two taunting penalties by an individual player will result in automatic disqualification."
This prompted a spicy reaction from fans and media, with accusations that the league is trying to pry the fun out of the game and commentary that this is a backtrack on the 2017 move to relax punishments for celebrations.
But there is more to it than that, and while perhaps this is an indicator that we are all football-obsessed, there is actually quite a bit of nuance at play.
Now, taunting is naughty. It is definitely not respectful. Yet it is often funny and sometimes could be described as karma, such as when Antoine Winfield flashed a peace sign at Tyreek Hill in the closing stages of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Super Bowl victory.
Hill, you likely remember, made that same gesture toward Winfield during the Kansas City Chiefs’ clash with the Bucs a few months earlier. Winfield was fined for his actions and probably felt it was money well spent.
"If there is a little bit of taunting in the competitive world, that’s good for the game," former NFL punter Pat McAfee said on his show.
Either way, if you’re grabbing a snack midgame and someone tells you a player just taunted a rival, you’re surely going to hustle back to the screen and press the rewind button — just like in the classroom. You shouldn’t like watching the prankster’s handiwork … but you do.
Even so, that doesn’t mean the league should just let it fly. From the NFL’s perspective, there are sound and solid intentions behind this missive. This is about promoting respect, which is hard to argue against. Exercising some restraint is probably, all things considered, preferable, even though there is often quite a bit of public enjoyment in the most extreme versions of inflammatory showboating.
The hard bit is this: NFL games are seething hotbeds of pent-up energy. How could they not be? Players (and yes, impatiently breathless fans) wait and wait and wait some more.
The offseason is interminably long. The anticipation for each game is palpable. Waiting for the snap feels like forever. Finally, a few seconds of explosive action ensue.
If that burst of activity ends favorably, emotions hit their absolute peak. Merely strolling back to the line might sound simple, but given that one big play can make or break a game, one big game can make or break a season and so on, some sort of release is inevitable.
The league realizes this, and all the NFL is really doing is trying to plant the seed now, hoping that when the inevitable celebration comes, the enthusiasm will be directed into a dance, a yell to the heavens, a group selfie or a strut, rather than something squarely aimed at making the player on the wrong end of the play look stupid.
No fun? Not entirely. The important thing to remember is this isn’t new. It’s not a rule change. Players aren’t suddenly forbidden from doing something they were previously allowed to do. The NFL has simply given a heads-up as to what it will be looking out for and prioritizing in the upcoming campaign. As well as taunting, there was clarification on illegal low blocks and illegal formations.
The taunting piece got the greatest publicity, and many have read this wrong, taking it as a bar on all celebration, which simply isn’t the case. Celebrations are fantastic, and the league recognizes that.
"They are not related," FOX NFL rules expert and former league head of officiating Dean Blandino told me via text message. "The point of emphasis is specific to taunting acts directed at the opponent. The group celebrations we’ve seen the past few seasons are still legal."
The funny thing is, when the NFL announced in 2017 that it was relaxing penalties for celebrations, everyone said, "It's about time." Yet even the most cursory look at the fine print back then would reveal that the sentiment was identical, just framed a bit differently.
A core component of the more lenient celebration rules was — guess what — that you could do a lot of things and have a lot of fun, as long as you didn’t aim them at an opponent in a way designed to denigrate them. Just like now.
A lot of things change quickly in the NFL, but some things don’t, and sometimes, we just look at them in an alternate way. We’re ready for football to come back — let’s face it — and a bit of impromptu outrage at this time never did anyone too much harm.
The reality, though, is that as much as taunting is a fan’s guilty pleasure, its impact on the game hasn’t truly shifted. You can’t taunt right now, says the league. But in reality, you never really could.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.