Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Citizen wrote:

JWL wrote:

John Grasso wrote:Why is taking off your helmet after scoring a touchdown (as happened to Odell Beckham today)
given the same 15 yard penalty as unnecessary roughness?

I like the penalty because I am tired of all this look-at-me crap in the league.

With all due respect, an emphasis on showmanship and self-promotion in the NFL is hardly a new trend. If you're not used to it by now, you never will be.

If threads like this are any indication, some hate it when the league cracks down on this kind of thing, and an equal number hate it when it doesn't.

Guys grabbing their junk (Logan Ryan, Marshawn Lynch, Jerrick McKinnon), guys miming sex moves (Antonio Brown), guys pretending to have missionary-style sex with nets (Odell Beckham Jr.), and guys pretending to take craps (Doug Baldwin) is a recent years development. I have been watching the NFL since the mid-1980s. The dancing was harmless back then. Now it is lowbrow garbage.

Getting back to the original point of the folly of penalizing helmet removal as harshly as unnecessary roughness, the rule is definitely the sore thumb on the list of 15-yard penalties:
Under NFL rules, your team will be penalized for:
Chop block. Clipping below the waist. Fair catch interference.
Illegal crackback block by offense. Piling on. Roughing the kicker. Roughing the passer.
Twisting, turning, or pulling an opponent by the facemask.
Unnecessary roughness. Unsportsmanlike conduct.
Delay of game at start of either half.
Illegal low block. A tackler using his helmet to butt, spear, or ram an opponent.
Any player who uses the top of his helmet unnecessarily.
A punter, placekicker, or holder who simulates being roughed by a defensive player.
Leaping. Leverage." And....

"Any player who removes his helmet after a play while on the field."
Kind of like those federal drug laws of the 90s that set mandatory 20-year prison sentences.

Leaping and Leverage also don't exactly fit with the others on the list. In fact, it's laughable that they are actually penalties.

For the approximately twenty years I played in sandlot and pick-up games/leagues we used to play by NFL rules, with two exceptions: 1. Fumbles were dead when they hit the ground and 2. No blocking beneath the waist.
Both alterations were for safety sake as we wore very few pads and no helmets.
But we all knew football and we all understood the rules. It was a simple and elegant system.

Now, when "the gang" gets together for a reunion game or three we play by the same rules except the "NFL rules" we use are specifically those from the 1980's as the current rules are constantly changing and completely unfathomable.

I can't imagine a group of self-refereeing players agreeing on what constitutes a catch under the current guidelines.