According to what I saw on ESPN this morning, the NFL has banned pretty much all touchdown celebrations. Sportscenter had an interview with Chad Johnson, who claims that they will not prevent “The greatest entertainer of all time” from entertaining (or something along those lines).
What does this do for the NFL? Almost everyone loves watching touchdown celebrations. They’re entertaining, they’re (for the most part) funny, and they give the NFL something to differentiate them from college football. The NFL is not a upstanding moral organization that is trying to pass down life’s little lessons to its viewers. No way! The NFL is an organization created to entertain viewers and make money. And touchdown celebrations entertain people, and they encourage more people to watch, thus making more money for the NFL through advertisements, product sales, etcetera.
[NFL Commissioner] Paul Tagliabue thinks he can now stand around pretending he is saving the world from moral injustice and poor sportsmanship, when all he’s really doing is getting rid of one of the best parts of every football game, the touchdown dance. Don’t do it, Paul, you’re only hurting the league you claim to love so much.
(on the other hand… is Chad Johnson really that full of himself or is he just a great comedian in interviews?)
9 Comments for NFL Bans Touchdown Celebrations
jon h | April 8, 2006 at 2:53 pm
george | April 8, 2006 at 3:52 pm
I don’t think hockey is a good example. There are like 20 people in the entire united states that watch hockey. Hardly anybody knew that they missed an entire season recently. Furthermore, hockey is known for fights and violence. Is that a good example for little kids?
Maybe they should allow elaborate celebrations in hockey to pick up some viewers…
Regardless of whether little kids watch it, the NFL was not created to teach little kids how to act.
jon h | April 9, 2006 at 12:01 am
ok… but sportsmanship is an issue…and just because you say that the NFL wasn’t created to teach people how to act, it does. Kids all over the country are high stepping into the endzone and doing stupid “deion” dances.
This may make for a good show at the time, but it is bad sportsmanship. And sportsmanship does cause more problems. It really doesn’t matter if people get pissed watching it, but maybe the coach sends out a goon for a late hit next time out. Maybe the pitcher intentionally hits the next batter. Next time the guy goes up for a lay up, the defender goes for a little less ball on the foul. Its a slippery slope, but it seems like NFL football is getting more and more emotional game. After every play somebody is jumping around like his hit just won them the superbowl.
People don’t watch football for the celebrations. People watch espn for the celebrations. Does everybody look away when the team is playing defense? It’s interesting for some, but is chad johnson going to be doing dances when his team is down 60-10…yeah…and it will look dumb as hell.
Case: Giants 2002. Jeremy Shockey is big into running around taunting other team’s defenses in his rookie year. He knocks over a couple guys and picks up 15 yards is yapping all of the time. Don’t you think that is a little provocative. Couple plays later Brian Dawkins lays out Ike Hilliard with a dirty hit. Out for the season.
jon h | August 25, 2006 at 7:47 pm
man…that is really random blog spam… i don’t think i’ll be clicking on a link that says “hermafroditas”…don’t have to know spanish to figure that one out
Author comment by george | August 25, 2006 at 11:40 pm
That’s the first random blog spam gimme-five has gotten since switching over to wordpress… ah well, it was a good run… about six months or so.
dudemzn | January 28, 2008 at 8:11 pm
i think that C.J. deserves to dance i mean they just scored 6.
dudemzn | January 30, 2008 at 7:19 pm
ocho cinco’s dances rock and i love them it’s not like drugs steroids. c.j., steve smith, to, joe horn, and randy moos rock
dudemzn | March 12, 2008 at 6:25 pm
randy rocks
Andrew | February 1, 2010 at 10:31 am
I have’nt really watched much football since 4-5 years ago. I use to watch it allot but I stopped because of things like this. Yea I might catch 1-2 niner games during the regular season, and watch the nfc championships and superbowl, but thats it. NFL used to be more fun back than, you had guys like Jerry Rice playing as best as he can for one team (14 – 49ers) and now you have team hoppers and guys who say “i play when i want to” (Moss). You touchdown celebrations like the dirty bird and owens putting the football on the middle of the cowboys sign. YOu dont hhave that now, fuck footblall.
I think it isn’t all bad. If people wanted more show, less substance, then they would have watched the XFL.
You know what sport I have started to like more and more recently, hockey, there are no “touchdown” dances, if a guy does something like that, he gets laid out. It seems like every NFL play these days has guys jawing at each other. The Giants started out flying high on offense, when Burress and Shockey got egos, they started whining all of the time…to the refs, to their qb (who definitely regressed throughout the season), to the other players. I just wanted to yell at them to be a man. Come to think of it, no other pro sport is at the height of NFL posturing except maybe international soccer. Its the same thing, pre-planned goal celebrations, and game spoiling “dives” and constant whining to referees.
If scoring a TD on another team is not enough for chad johnson, maybe he should do something else.
As for its influence on people, you are very wrong. Since it is the ultimate professional sport in the US right now, people are seeing this stuff on ESPN. Junior high kids are dancing over opponents in endzones, and then kids are fighting after the play.
We’ll all see, but some people are great players, and some people are great players who like being part of a show so much that they get kicked out [T.O].