No Fun League? Officials cut back on celebration penalties and all is well
An NFL player was penalized Sunday for the grave offense of making a snow angel and, oh, the protests came howling. Social media lit up, the memes started flowing and the No Fun League once again was intruding on football consumption.
The moment -- more on it in a bit -- certainly was notable, but not for the reason you might think. In truth, it was a revival of a storyline that quietly has petered out over the past month and a half. Penalties for taunting and unsportsmanlike conduct have dropped dramatically since Week 7, and heavens to Betsy, the NFL even allowed more than 500 players to ignore its rules and wear custom cleats this week to commemorate charitable causes.
What in the world is happening? Has the NFL finally come to its senses on an unwinnable and unnecessarily stringent mindset?
I wouldn't go that far. The one-week shoe exception was planned before the season, and a reduction in penalties isn't entirely unusual when the NFL establishes a preseason point of emphasis. Sometimes players get the message and adjust accordingly. But the effect has been the same regardless: Fewer games are being delayed and affected by fouls that seem inconsequential to the competition and excessive relative to consumers' sensibilities.
NFL officials called 17 taunting fouls in the first three weeks of the season and an average of three per week through Week 7. That average has dropped by almost half, to 1.7 per week since the start of Week 8.
Overall, the average number of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties has fallen from 7.1 per week in Weeks 1-7 to 3.1 since. Heck, the NFL has gone three whole weeks without ejecting a player from a game after disqualifying 11 in the first 10.
Sunday, referee Pete Morelli's crew penalized San Francisco 49ers cornerback Rashard Robinson’s snow angel during a snowy game at Soldier Field, an act that technically violated the prohibition of celebrating while on the ground. But another snow angel in a different Midwest game escaped penalty.
Yes, Gene Steratore's crew didn't bother to call Green Bay Packers receiver Randall Cobb for his snow angel. To my knowledge, Lambeau Field didn't collapse from the gravity of the act and subsequent compassion. The Football Zebras website suggested that Cobb's celebration was legal because he already was on the ground after diving to make a touchdown catch. But I prefer to view it as an act of decency and pre-holiday charity.
When you combine the reduction in fouls with the one-week footwear exception, you can envision a reasonably minded league focused on what actually matters. Both the level of competition and television ratings have taken a notable upswing over the period we're talking about. (Scheduling and the presidential election probably played a role as well.)
It's enough to make you wonder whether the NFL really needs to put itself through the tough love of No Fun to achieve its optimal product. The league would note that the early spate of penalties set a boundary that players are now observing. But it's fair to ask: Was it really necessary to spend half the season drilling it into their heads? Couldn't that standard be set via offseason communication rather than on-field discipline?
As a matter of public perception and psychology, after all, it's unlikely that most fans have caught the second-half pullback. The damage, to the extent that it occurred, is done. The Peak No Fun League aura will echo, for the most part, until the end of the season regardless of the numbers.
So will reports of fines in previous years for uniform violations related to charitable messages on shoes. The NFL has 409 words in its rulebook devoted to shoe etiquette, including detailed instructions on how to cut the athletic tape used to hide unapproved sponsors. (It must be "clean" and "the exact size of the logo or name.")
But to the surprise of no one, the league was hardly damaged in Week 13 by the presence of charitable messages. Nor did chaos spontaneously erupt amid the decision in September to not fine players who wore cleats that commemorated the victims of 9/11. This week's temporary relaxation was greeted with unanimous approval, from what I can tell. Hopefully, it provided inspiration to relax some of the league's more draconian standards.
There are plenty of existential issues facing the NFL, problems with no easy answers. Why provide such low-hanging grist for criticism when the alternative seems so clear? It's something to ponder, if nothing else, here in the first week of December.
