This somehow needs to be mixed into the NFL.
During last nights Monday Night Football game between the Seattle Seahawks and St. Louis Rams, Golden Tate got flagged for taunting on an 80 yard touchdown catch. All he did was wave to Rodney McLeod, Jr. What’s the big deal? I will give you a 5-star guarantee that was down the list of things that were said or done during that were unsportsmanlike. If you think there was nothing said during that game that was worse, you are crazy. Last week, Janoris Jenkins got put on Carolina’s Steve Smith’s shit list (a list no one wants to be on) for talking about his wife. Guess who Tate caught that ball on before waving? That’s right, Jenkins.
All this wave does is create a little more intensity for a divisional rivalry. The flag takes the impact of the wave down a few notches, because it already embarrasses Tate. Wouldn’t Rams fans want to see their squad embarrass Tate instead? I know if that was the other way around, I would want The Legion of Boom to completely shutdown whoever did that the next game. I want a Steve Smith interview every week of the NFL season. Maybe, punching Jenkins in the mouth on the streets is a little far, but we don’t know exactly what he said. We have four days without football during the week and one day of Thursday Night Football (which barely counts). The taunting and trash talking just gives us more to dive into during the week.
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The days of Terrell Owens breaking out a Sharpie, dancing with pom-poms, sleeping on balls or running to the star in the middle of Cowboys stadium are over. Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson proposing to Ben-Gals, putting with the pylon, fake bribing referees, or wearing “Future Hall of Fame” jackets are over. Even simple things like Wes Welker doing snow angels are over.
Fans get up on their high horse and say, “have some class” or “what an idiot.” Let’s face it, we all love watching that. It’s funny. The only reason you wouldn’t like it, is because it happened against your team. Well, the Sharpie incident happened against my Seahawks (that’s right, MY) and I thought it was awesome then and still think it’s awesome to this day. Get over yourselves, it has no effect on the game. It is more entertainment during an already very entertaining sport. I don’t know about you, but I like to get my money’s worth.
I even want to see all this trash talking and showboating taken to another level. A Ric Flair style interview should be required by every team, every week.
Imagine this was going down before every match/game! There are some great trash talkers in the NFL and their mouth running would be put on display. Rivalries would be better. Games would have more meaning, because teams would be out there trying even harder to prove the trash talkers wrong. All teams would be all the more motivated, because they would all have bulletin board material. That’s what we all want, right, more motivated teams? I know the folks in Philly, New York and Pittsburgh want that, right now. The endzone dances would be the equivalent of Stone Cold going to the turnbuckles and drinking beer! The crowd at NFL games would go even more wild during the celebrations.
Even if the NFL doesn’t go as far as WWE or TNA, it still has gone too far in the other direction. The players are killing themselves out there, literally. Let them have some fun.
