TWIOT: Why Are We Afraid of Touchdown Celebrations?

An appropriate picture of Bob Costas for the occasion.
Screen Grab Credit: 30fps

For those who don’t watch NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecast, Bob Costas goes on a prolonged monologue after the studio crew runs down the day’s highlights at halftime. Some weeks, his soliloquy is profound, like when he eulogized Raiders owner Al Davis. Others (some would argue most of the time), it comes off as pompous and overblown. This past week, during the halftime of the Chiefs/Steelers game, Costas went on an almost-rant against the “epidemic” of showboating in the NFL. My guess is the tipping point was Stevie Johnson of the Buffalo Bills mocking both Plaxico Burress and Santonio Holmes respectively with his celebration after a 2nd quarter touchdown reception against the Jets, feigning shooting himself in the leg and then flying around like a jet plane. Costas decried the players in the league of being “self-indulgent”, oblivious of the fact that he himself was taking a chunk of time to use flowery speech to take the players to task, and excused the celebrations of the more restrained players, ones that celebrated in good faith.

Excuse me while I hurl.

Costas’ overblown rant to me came off as an old white guy out of touch with what “them damn kids” were doing. Be that as it may, I’m not sure he had a point, even if it wasn’t based in false nostalgia of a time when people in the profession he covers repressed their emotions and “played the game”. For one, nearly every kind of celebration is self-indulgent to a point. Aaron Rodgers (or anyone, really) leaping into the crowd at Lambeau Field isn’t just a selfless act of giving back to the fans. The leaper seems to want to show off a bit. It’s just they’re including other people in their celebration.

Okay, so how much of this self-indulgence is enough self-indulgence? Who can decide? I’m not sure Bob Costas can. I sure as hell am not qualified to decide. I’m only sure that Roger Goodell and the NFL competition committee can because it’s their league and they can make the rules as they want. In a general sense though, I feel as though people should act within the spirit of the First Amendment as much as they can. Sure, the NFL doesn’t have to abide by the strict code of allowing free expression since it only applies to whether the government can censor or not. That being said, what’s so wrong with free expression anyway? Why are we so afraid of people “being cocky?”

There is no altruism behind my intent with this argument. I know that some guys are going out there and gesticulating to get attention on themselves or because they have huge egos. No way does Terrell Owens run all the way out to the big star in the middle of old Texas Stadium because he was just happy to score. That being said, why does being cocky offend us? Why is being humble seen as not just one viable option, but the ONLY acceptable way to carry oneself? Personally, if someone crows and caws after performing well or doing something great, they’ve earned that right. If they do it after something germane, then hey, it’s their prerogative to look like an ass. That being said, if a team gets pissed over a guy celebrating, maybe they should have done better to stop him. If the fans get pissed, maybe they should focus their anger on the team that didn’t stop them than the guy who made the play.

Personal expression is a wonderful thing. It can lead to some entertaining displays. What Stevie Johnson did Sunday was fucking entertaining. If it wasn’t then hey, who cares? It helps create a guy to hate, and in a sport that is driven by stories (no matter how much some people want to deny it), having no shortage of villains is only a good thing. Because there’s no universal standard as to what’s entertaining and what’s annoying, my suggestion would be letting everything go and letting the crowd decide through debate and discussion.

Costas’ tone wasn’t conducive to a debate at all to me. It was very much a guy who felt out of touch seeing that people were “taking away from the game” and ranting about it. As if the league itself hasn’t done a bad enough job detracting from the game with labor disputes over the distribution of income between billionaires and millionaires, the lackadaisical enforcement of rules designed to increase “player safety”, archaic blackout rules and a league-owned channel that is still not available everywhere thanks to what might be tantamount to blackmail.

I will say this though; I don’t think Costas should have to mention the amount of thuggery outside of the parameters of the game to make his rant about showboating legitimate. I’m sure if one were to ask him how he felt about things like Mark Sanchez’s and Ben Roethlisberger’s alleged sexual indiscretions or Michael Vick’s past as a dogfighting ringleader that he would frown upon them. To me, that’s a little bit of a false equivalency (although I do agree that the lack of outrage over some of those alleged or confirmed crimes paling in comparison to guys like Owens is appalling).

That being said, I think he’s way off-base with his faux outrage over dances, celebrations and personal expression. Human beings play the game of football. Human beings are imperfect, and in a way, they’re vain creatures. I say let them play into their “self-indulgent” tendencies without penalty. Let the people who get pissed off over them either show self-restraint or pick up their game so that those who are the braggarts have no reason to flap their wings.