What are you talking about? I really don't think race has much to do with the way the taunting penalties were called.
Week 2 NFL Game Thread
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
- Start date
You're right, this is the same guy who had a 43-year-old backup QB kick the first drop kick in 65 years. It's fun.Then Tom Brady couldn't have punted, though.
It was a mess at Gillette last week too.
Here is the new deal, no paper tickets, so all tickets are now on your phone. The problems really took hold when you had thousands of people in line to get through security, and the stadium wifi couldn't handle the load, so people are literally getting to the front of the line, updating their phones, rebooting their phones and trying to get a connection. They will not accept screen shots of your tickets either, because the tickets go through ticket master, you download from there, and then they go into your Gillette Stadium App. The bar code apparently changes every xxx amount of minutes, so you must have a live feed on your phone with internet to get in the door.
Then it gets worse. I have 2 seats in section 125 and 2 in section 129. The problem is I have all 4 tickets on my phone, so once my friends who weren't sitting with me, tried to get to their seats, the usher wouldn't let them because they didn't have the tickets on their phone, and they wouldn't accept a screen shot, so every time they got up, I'd have to go over to where they were to make sure they could go back to their seats....It was a mess.
Maybe the NFL's system is different, but you should be able to forward tickets to someone else.
You can transfer tickets, but we didn't worry about doing that beforehand, because we were all going into the game together, so it made more sense for one person to have the tickets on their phone, rather than 2 or 4 people also now worrying about downloading multiple apps, and trying to get a connection at security, etc. A lot of times, we don't even know which folks in our group (we've been tailgating with the same 24-28 people for about 30 years) are showing up at the game until game day.
Once you go through the door, you can't subsequently transfer the tickets to someone else, so there is absolutely no reason that people who are already in the stadium shouldn't be able to pull up a screen shot of the ticket to get to their seats.
I had something similar happen at a concert on Friday night. It's not the NFL. It's ticketmaster.
My friend sent me an eticket. Had to login to ticketmaster. Successfully logged in. Then had to get a code sent to my phone. Never received the code. I was with a third friend who has parkinsons. His ticket was sent to his phone so he had to login to ticketmaster with his account too.
It was a mess. Easier to just have original friend meet us at the head of the line.
I’m going to the game this coming Sunday, and I can’t say reading this pumped me up too much.
But good to know because at least I can psychologically prepare myself.
This is as disingenuous an argument as the right uses when they say masking and vaccines are about control and compliance.
Is an illegal shift racist? How about offsides?
Further, bringing such a V&N hot take into a Week 2 NFL thread isn't cool.
It will be interesting if they ever call Brady for it. He always loves a little taunting of a defender after a big play (see Tyrann Mathieu in the Super Bowl or Anthony Smith in 2007)
It's not illogical to me at all. NFL viewers skew white and conservative, and black players kneeling for racial justice was enough to throw them into a tizzy. Players taunting aka "acting black" or what they'd call "disrespecting the game" in MLB is absolutely something these billionaire white owners would be concerned about. Do you really not see that as a possibility?
Yeah the idea that it's rooted in race isn't (right now at least) a question of who's getting called for taunting - it's a question of why there's a rule/point of emphasis against it at all. And in that sense I don't think it's out of bounds at all to look at it the way Laddie or RIr09 are.
Do people not watch the NFL because players spin the ball on the ground after a first down? This is nothing like the kneeling, which was more of a media story than a thing that damaged the NFL. The ratings for the NFL appear to be decent. They were up 7% from last year. So by decent, I mean the biggest ratings draw out of anything currently televised. Nothing is seeing a ratings increase. The NBA finals were watched by like 18 people. . . .total.
I mean, the rule is ridiculous and stupid. But you think John Mara wants to stop taunting because he's cracking the whip? Or is it because his team has the worst record in the NFL since 2017 and his feelings are getting hurt because people are always celebrating when they play the Giants?
So your theory is that the owners of bad teams pushed for this rule so other teams would stop taunting their players?
John Mara was definitely the loudest individual involved with the Competition Committee about the rule. And his team is literally the worst team in the NFL. And his comments indicated exactly that.
"That's something we discuss every year in the Competition Committee. We get kind of sick and tired of the talking that does go on from time to time on the field. Nobody wants to see that." His nobody is global but it should be individual. He is speaking for himself.
So unless Mara wants to be a slave owner, I would take this at face value.
Thing is.... there was no whistle. They retroactively called forward progress because they didn't want to call grounding in the end zone for a safety. If Wilson completes a pass on that throw they would have allowed it because they never blew the play dead.
It was 100% a "I can't call a safety that ends the game, please give me a reason that isn't reviewable", which lead to "yeah forward progress.... I meant to blow the whistle but forgot" which is a massive copout.
Who's calling him a slave owner? Quit the bullshit hyperbole. "We get kind of sick and tired of the talking that does go on from time to time on the field. Nobody wants to see that." They don't like the "talking" that goes on. AKA young black men expressing themselves in an extremely competitive environment the way they've grown up doing. It's a fucking dog whistle, but old white dudes like Mara are lucky they have guys like you in their corner to defend them.
I don't see why any of those penalties were controversial. That stuff has been called for several years now.
I also don't see the racial aspect of it, but whatever. I'm not going to V&N this.
Nice try with the gaslighting. A tweet was posted in this actual thread. It had the actual words as follows. "This is about control. Specifically, and mostly, control of Black bodies."
How do you read that Tweet? They want to control those black bodies so they can give them hugs?
No. They, as employers, want as much control over their employees as possible. This is not unique in our society, but the dynamic of billionaire white guys telling a bunch of black guys who bash their own heads in every Sunday how to behave in what they view as a dignified manner absolutely is. They reap billions in profits off of their backs every year and it’s still not enough. They couldn’t deal with them trash talking or spinning a fucking football so they had to shut that down, because they can. Because they do control those black men and their bodies as much as anyone legally can today.
Yeah, you don't get it. That's alright.
Can't possibly see how a rule that is restricting the emotional freedom and behavior of what is primarily black athletes by primarily white, old men is... a bit racist?
Personally, I take the black NFL writer at his word. YMMV.
1) Spinning the ball after a catch has been a taunting penalty as long as I can remember
2) Talking shit and bumping a helmet after a tackle is always a penalty
3) I have no idea what this was - very little video
4) Talking shit to a player on the ground after a tackle has been a taunting penalty as long as I can remember - sometimes they miss it and don't call it but nothing unusual
5) I have no idea what this was with Dalton? Roughing the passer?
6) This was a TD? I didn't see a flag - maybe I missed it.
2) Talking shit and bumping a helmet after a tackle is always a penalty
3) I have no idea what this was - very little video
4) Talking shit to a player on the ground after a tackle has been a taunting penalty as long as I can remember - sometimes they miss it and don't call it but nothing unusual
5) I have no idea what this was with Dalton? Roughing the passer?
6) This was a TD? I didn't see a flag - maybe I missed it.
If they were just trying to avoid calling a safety why not just call the pass incomplete? Forward progress rulings can take some time because you need to be sure that the runner isn't going to escape. But as I said before I think the whistle is quick here.
Is this different than when refs T up NBA players? If so, how? I am open to the idea that taunting is kind of a racist rule. Is it racist in the NBA too? Probably?
I don't like the emphasis that's happened so often this year, but it's not a new rule. Taunting has been a rule forever. Nobody batted an eye when they made the throat slash gesture a penalty.
You guys think Belichick is racist because he supports the rule:
“In general, I don’t really think there’s a place for taunting in the game,” Belichick said Monday morning. “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.”
As usual, I side with BB on this one. Taunting is only good for the player doing the taunting. Then it leads to a player reacting to that taunting (and usually, they end up with the penalty) or you end up with a melee in which someone is ripping someone's chain off their neck, or throwing haymakers. Just play the fucking game, hit someone hard, score a touchdown, and if you want to flex about it, walk away and then flex. Guys got used to not celebrating touchdowns for a decade, then they allowed it again. Guys will get used to not being allowed to taunt their opponents, and this will be a big nothing burger.
If after every strikeout, a Sox pitcher went all Derek Lowe with a "suck it", and in the next half inning, Xander took a fastball to to the dome, would folks have a problem if the pitcher was instead tossed for taunting? Or would they prefer to allow that but the price you pay is Xander missing the next few weeks?
It's the retaliation and the fact that if you allow taunting, but don't allow a response, where's the line?
So then you should be fine with the player being taunted reacting and laying out the guy taunting him. After all, they are just expressing themselves in an extremely competitive environment and just reacting to their emotions? A lot of these players probably did grow up doing just that if someone taunted them in the streets (I know, I probably would have if I was 6'5 and 280 pounds). I don't think race has anything to do with this. I think JohnMD is probably close to correct. Guys like Mara, who have bad teams are constantly watching their players abused on the field, and then taunted between plays, but his guys are supposed to control themselves instead of retaliate, because retaliating (the second guy always gets called) is almost always a penalty.
Or, you know, the pitcher could not throw at a guy's head because another guy taunted their team over a strikeout? Everyone can just have fun and grow up a little and not retaliate over something small and inconsequential. I mean there should be degrees to this and certain violent taunts should be flagged but some guy doing the "no chance" hands gesture after a pass break up ain't it.
Taunting is probably more a generationaly divide than anything. But... it's much like the baseball celebration "Controversy" which is that the young guys who think of it as part of the game and part of the fun are generally both young AND non-white, where the old guys who bitch and moan are mostly old and white.
Though in general, the taunting emphasis seems to be almost universally reviled by fans, the only people interested in it are owners.
Though in general, the taunting emphasis seems to be almost universally reviled by fans, the only people interested in it are owners.
Because physical violence is exactly the same as flexing or spinning a ball? Talk about a straw man. And black guys grew up punching each other "in the streets?" The amount of tone deaf, white privilege on display in this thread is stunning.
Race questions aside as well as that perhaps some of those would have been called last year...who is bothered by the shit in that twitter clip? Even from the Belichick angle, the only one of those I'd be angry at a Patriots player for in the abstract is maybe the Keenan Allen one where he follows the defender and looks like he's about to chest bump him. The rest are beyond benign.
They've called as many taunting penalties in 2 weeks as they did all of last year. They're going after the most benign shit possible to put the players on notice as to how they're expected to behave.
Football is a violent game and I can understand some concern about taunting leading to retaliation and guys getting suspended or hurt. I think the new emphasis on an old rule is more about keeping players on the field than it is racially motivated.
I guess I don’t see what ‘problem’ the new emphasis on the enforcement of the taunting rule is solving. What it has certainly seemed to do is create a wholly separate, and worse, problem, namely pissing off fans and players because nobody except coaches and owners give a fuck about most of the celebrations captured in the Twitter video posted upthread.
I just think it's so hard to officiate. What's taunting at this point? The 49ers put out a mic-ed up video of one of their OL lying on top of a DL after Jimmy's qb sneak TD yesterday, where he's cheering "TD BABY! TD ALL DAY!"
Is that taunting? What the hell constitutes it?
That’s the only one I saw as it happened. Unless he said something vile, it didn’t seem that out of place or flaggable to me - but Allen is a bit of an intense competitor and maybe the bump and following the other player put it over the edge.
Hadn't done my hw, but that's what I figured. Feels shortsighted to me, outside of shit talking after helmet to helmet/injuries which has obviously no place in 2021, I think a sizable portion of fans look at what's passing for taunting as a feature, not a bug.
I don't know. I'd hope they would draw a distinction between taunting clearly directed at an opposing player and not something untargeted and more celebratory. But it is the NFL, so I don't have high expectations.
Are you saying no way the refs call a safety there because it would affect their career. If you are basing any calls based on your career trajectory then you throw any claims of objectivity out the window. Any ref doing that has no business being on the field.
And those taunting calls were ridiculous. I'm an old white guy and I don't know how anyone could defend it. There is likely generational bias but little doubt in my mind their is racial bias and prejudice in deciding to emphasize the rule.
I don't believe it's simply spinning the ball = penalty. You have to spin the ball in a taunting manner e.g. in the direction of an opponent.
Yup. This was literally never an issue. I've never seen it be brought up as an issue. I can't even recall an instance in which a brawl broke out because of a taunt. Unless it constitutes an act of aggression, let guys beat their chest, spin the ball, wave goodbye, who cares? Winfield got the fingers from Hill and then got his revenge in the Super Bowl and it was awesome. Whose children did that act negatively impact?
For a league that's constantly tell us how badly they don't want to put their officials in a situation where they have to make "judgment calls," this seems like a pretty short-sighted strategy.
