Hashbrown’s has an interesting post up today, as does NYT Fifth Down, about Terrell Owens’ sprint celebration during Sunday’s game against Cleveland. New York Times reporters interviewed a league official about why Owens got a 15-yard penalty for his tribute to sprinter Usain Bolt. What the official says makes absolutely no sense, and when pressed, he digs a deeper hole.
“You’ve just got to stay on your feet,” Mike Pereira, the league’s supervisor of officials, said in a telephone interview Monday. (Pereira did make one exception: he said no player would be penalized on his watch for dropping to his knees to pray because “I do not want to get struck by lightning.”)
Stay on your feet? What the hell is he talking about? How come every idiot Packer can jump into the fans when they score, but Terrell Owens cannot immitate a gold-medal sprinter? Matt Mosley at Hashmarks attempts to answer why the Packers are special and Owens gets the flag:
Pereira also said the Lambeau Leap was allowed because it’s classified as a spontaneous display of emotion and doesn’t normally involve teammates. And while I have no problem with the Leap, let’s not say it’s a spontaneous reaction. When something has been done by a team for years, it’s no longer spontaneous.
I bet if Owens were a Packer, the Lambeau Leap would be penalized. This is obviously a conspiracy against Owens, and it’s not surprising because the NFL has always had it in for him.
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At least it did not matter to the outcome to this game. Can you imagine if it did?
I hate the Cowboys and I hate Owens, but even I have to admit that was a horrible penalty. I really don’t know why the NFL is so crazy about penalizing people for celebrating.
That said, I don’t necessarily buy into any elaborate conspiracy. I’ve seen plenty of similar calls that were just as terrible against people not named Terrell Owens. Yes, the explanation they gave was completely and utterly crappy, but that has more to do with a pathetic attempt to justify a bad call.
What the hell is he going to say? He’s not going to throw his coworker under the bus, so he has to make up some BS response about the player staying on his feet. Refs don’t penalize the Lambeau Leap because they realize fans wouldn’t stand for it. It’s that simple. If the leap wasn’t already well established tradition it probably wouldn’t be allowed today either. It’s stupid and petty but it has nothing to do with picking on TO.
At worst, one lone idiot ref was picking on TO. The rest of the organization just didn’t want to look bad.
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