Bland, yet Spicy: tackling the issues

By: Ian Van Anden
Sports Editor

To celebrate or not to celebrate? This is the question facing National Football League officials and players.

Orrin Peterson and Ryan Bland will approach different sports topics in a weekly column.

Peterson and Bland will each take a side on a given issue and debate it with one another.

This week, Peterson and Bland are tackling the National Football League and some recent rule changes.

Bland and Peterson will debate on whether a new rule change is warranted or not.

This year, the NFL has decided that the celebrations taking place after touchdowns have gotten out of hand.

In response to this issue, the commissioner’s office designed a new system of rules making celebrations illegal.

Athletes such as Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson and Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens have been self-appointed spokesmen for the players.

Both have stated they will find ways around the new regulations. Johnson has even gone as far as offering to pay a referee’s fine if no penalty were called.

For the first time in recent memory, the biggest rule change in the NFL has to do with after-the-play activity. Instead of focusing on what happens between the whistles, the attention has been brought to what happens after a score.

Next week, Peterson and Bland will investigate the effects of sports video games on college students.

Comments?
Contact the Sports Editor,
Ian Van Anden
ivananden@monm.edu

By: Orrin Peterson
Contributing Writer

This year in the NFL, new rule changes have prohibited players from performing many of the celebrations in which they once participated. These new rule changes have hampered the entertainment value of the league. 

The NFL, whether you will admit it or not, is an entertainment industry and the primary reason people watch is for the entertainment value. 

The celebrations the players have performed in the past have been entertaining. The celebrators have yet to cross the line of good taste. Players should be able to celebrate in any manner they desire. Who does it hurt when a player picks up a Sharpie, signs a ball and hands it to a man in the crowd?

The argument that celebrations will trickle down into college and high school sports is grossly untrue. High school and college coaches are in the positions to help mold young minds, and they will rarely allow unreasonable celebrations. 

The bottom line is, in high school and college football, the players aren’t paid to play, but in the NFL, the huge amounts of money the players make gives them the right to celebrate and have a little fun. 

If this ban on celebrations in the NFL persists, the league will eventually come to the realization that viewers will switch the channel over to a hockey game because fighting in NHL is always more entertaining than a touchdown without a celebration in the NFL. 

By: Ryan Bland
Contributing Writer

Whether they like it or not, NFL players are role models. When children see these athletes pulling Sharpie markers out of their socks or taking cell phones out of the padding that protects the goal posts, they think it is acceptable behavior.

Many of these celebrations involve props, taunting and humiliation of the opponent. Celebrations involving props or elaborative dances are, more times than not, premeditated and therefore against the rules.

Children today should look up to players like Barry Sanders. After every touchdown he scored, Sanders simply flipped the ball to one of the officials. There’s no silly dance, no marriage proposal, no Spider-Man impersonation, just a simple toss of the ball to the man in black and white.

I understand that after scoring a touchdown, many people naturally feel the urge to celebrate. A simple high-five from a teammate is usually acceptable and makes no effort to belittle or embarrass the opponent.

What worries me most about the celebrations by the players is that it is starting to trickle down into the colleges, high schools and even the peewee ranks. Over the last couple of years, NCAA Division I-A college football players have been able to celebrate more and more without getting penalized.

For the most part, Division III and high school are still fairly strict, but if the NFL had not tightened up its rules on celebration this year, who knows what kind of celebrations we would be seeing.