The Football's Elbow

Tate layeth the smacketh down on a football, even as his team turned out to be a bunch of jabronis yesterday
Photo Credit: Joe Sargent/Getty Images

So when wrestling happens in football, it's usually player-on-player. While cool to look at, the football field wrestling moves are more dangerous in theory because it's a shoot. That is to say, the victim may not be as protected as the average wrestler taking the equivalent in the ring. That takes some wind out of the sails. However, Golden Tate, Detroit Lions wide receiver and maple bar enthusiast, made sure no one got hurt on his electrifying take on wrestling on the gridiron. When he delivered his take on The People's Elbow, he did it on a football.

Tate broke out the highly topical celebration yesterday, in the Lions ugly 52-38 loss to the New Orleans Saints at the Superdome. Despite being on the overall losing end, the Lions had quite a few highlight reel plays, including Tate snagging a ball and juking several defenders for a long touchdown reception. Tate's moves on the field before hitting paydirt probably were more reminiscent of Kofi Kingston or Will Ospreay. But once he hit the end zone, it was all Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. You'll have to follow the link to Deadspin to read it, but trust me, it'll be worth it.

Of course, a ball's small size limits the kinds of moves one can do to it, but at least no one got increased risk of CTE from taking the move. Hopefully, Tate has more wrestling-related celebrations for the future, especially if he can break them out en route to victories for his team rather than defeats. Many a long-suffering, diehard Lions fan would like more of those than the team has gotten since its last title in 1957.