Nothing is new in football, ever. Everything is a giant digital loop because, as always, the old folks in charge want desperately to define fun in the same way that they define everything else about their employee class.
So, of course, we’re back on the touchdown celebration debate 20 years later -- only this time, because Canada.
More specifically, Jon Gott of the Ottawa Redblacks, who celebrated a teammate's touchdown in a win over Toronto by running toward the stands, grabbing a 20-ounce beer from a woman (who was not offended by the appropriation) and proceeded to drain it into his mouth and massive beard.
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SIGN UP HERE It unquestionably was a great moment, and to their eternal credit, neither the team nor the league is going to sanction Gott in any way because, well, because it was fun.
One day later, West Virginia quarterback Will Grier reached across the end zone with the ball to celebrate a two-point conversion against Texas, and Longhorns coach Tom Herman later complained that there should have been a taunting penalty against the Mountaineers.
And two days later, Michael Thomas of the New Orleans Saints used a cell phone as an homage to former Saints receiver Joe Horn after scoring against the Los Angeles Rams, and the traditionalist wing of Football Inc. is going purple, as it did 10 years ago and 15 years ago and 20 years ago and even back in the '60s when Clem Daniels and Homer Jones invented the end zone spike.
So rather than reconstitute the arguments for you, we’ll just say this. Football is an ass.
And no, you needn’t offer your opinion. This is objectively true, and no debate is needed.
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We rail incoherently about baseball’s unwritten rules when in fact touchdown celebrations are their own unwritten rule. True, there is a written rule against it, but as it has nothing to do with anything except with the mythos of the sport as opposed to the actual playing of the games, it is more about who is offended by what.
Thomas celebrated in a close game, and the argument is posed as “Well, what if the Rams had won?” Well, they didn’t win. In fact, the touchdown put the Rams behind by 10, not seven or three. If they had won, and Thomas’ choice was directly responsible, then fine. He took his chances, and he’ll pay the price.
But the real argument wasn’t “What if the Rams had won?” but “Why is he having unapproved fun?” Jon Gott had unapproved fun, and it was brilliant, and funny, and cartoonish, and put the game in its proper perspective, which is, “The people who do all the work should have a beer, too.”
And why? Because the CFL gets it. Because the CFL isn’t the world of the uptight. Because the CFL doesn’t define itself as the soul of a nation -- in Canada, that’s hockey’s job.
In America, football has seized upon the job of being America’s cultural cops, and has done a dreadful job of it because football is reaching an aging demographic and fears backlash more than it does embrace divergent thought, even frivolous ones. And that’s why football is an ass, and why the people who run the sport worry about that aging demographic as much as it worries about insurance payments to former players or knees during songs.
So on a weekend when Saints-Rams was great and Patriots-Packers was epic and Jets-Dolphins was perfect for people who like the football of the 1930s and 49ers-Raiders was fantastic if you want to show your kids what happens when you don’t want to do something, we’re talking about touchdown celebrations -- because, and we can't emphasize this enough, football is an ass.
Except Jon Gott. He totally gets it.