Monday, November 28, 2011

The National Football Classless League


Stevie Johnson is the face of the NFL...not Stevie Johnson per se (and what male adult goes by Stevie anyway?), but classless players like him that the NFL is rife with. Case in point, Sunday's NY Jets - Buffalo Bills game. As we all know, the Jets'/then Giants' Plaxico Burress did something really stupid back in 2008 (almost four years to the day of Sunday's game) - carried an illegal weapon into a nightclub and then things went from bad to worse when he accidentally shot himself in the leg. Mayor Bloomberg made sure Burress was made an example of and off to jail for the gun possession he went.

That brings us to Sunday's game when Johnson caught a touchdown pass from Ryan Fitzpatrick and began one of the asinine little dances that is so prevalent in the NFL. But Johnson then took it one step further by pantomiming Burress shooting himself in the thigh. Johnson then topped his performance off with a harmless impersonation of Santonio Holmes' jet-in-flight touchdown celebration.

Johnson's actions were disgusting, despicable, and unfortunately, oh so typical. The league should heavily fine the wide out, who wasn't showing off so much when he was dropping passes like crazy last year. It's fine to celebrate that you scored, not everyone needs to just hand the ball to the referee, butover the years things have gone from the fun, high-stepping spike of the Chiefs' Elmo Wright and Billy "White Shoes" Johnson's wobbly leg dance to pre-planned and orchestrated celebrations like Joe Horn's cellphone fiasco and Terrell Owens' Sharpie in the sock ploy.

Those players and other clowns like them (hey cornerback do you really want to pound your chest after the wide receiver dropped a wide open pass?) don't realize how much their actions take away from the game and influence kids. Their lack of maturity and self centered approach to the game does nothing more than give their sport a black eye.

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