Smack is part of the game. Taunting is making a public spectacle of it and it IS NOT PART OF THE GAME. It's showboating.
Come on . . . Refs do this all the time and they do have guidelines that they follow. What exactly do you think you could write that will ever take a referees call out of it? They make 100 good calls for every bad one.
Disagree, what do you think smack talking is, it's taunting another player. Whats wrong with a player holding the ball out and waving it to a defender who has been talking smack all game? You don't think touchdown celebrations are taunting? The point anyway, is that officials aren't there to change outcomes of the games. And this is going to happen.
I know, but I think this is different, in that it is empowering officials to take points off the scoreboard for a violation that clearly did not affect the outcome of the play. For the record, I don't necessarily have a problem with penalizing for unsportsmanlike conduct. I have a problem with this rule change specifically because of how game changing it can be. It's one thing for a ref to call pass interference or holding. Breaking those rules give you a clear competitive advantage over your opponent. Had you not held, that defender may have made the tackle and stopped the TD. But this? "Well, you clearly weren't going to catch that WR, but he was a meanie, so we will give you another chance, anyway." As for guidelines, just because they have them, don't mean they're followed. It makes matters even worse when the SEC office comes out and says they didn't do anything wrong, just enabling them to do it again. There is no accountability for poor judgment, and now it can severely impact the game for what I consider a rather meaningless infraction.
The celebration crap is getting overboard. Its taking away fun from the game and making it robotic. If you score a TD and wanna dance you should be able to. Now some things are overboard but most celebration penalties are BS.
No, its not. Smack is players talking crap to each other. Taunting is publicly doing so to ridicule an opponent before the crowd. Because he's doing it for the crowd to draw attention to himself. Crowd control is bad enough without players inciting the fans.
Those things are part of the game. Its getting into the head of an opponent. It may make that player make a key mistake going for the big hit, rather than making the play.
Not really, he would be doing it to rub it in the face of the guy who has been talking smack. Crowd has nothing to do with it. Now, something Terrell Owens does, like spiking on the star, or the Lambeau Leap, that is trying to draw attention to yourself with the crowd.
It would seem that many of these referee interpretations on the field are necessary because many football coaches have allow for all this"freedom of expression" to began with. I would think at this very moment the best coaches in america are explaining to their players, in detail, why this is not going to be a problem on our football team this year. Other less demanding coaches will simply hope for the best, by not insisting, it better not happen. When you coach em up the referees have a lot less to do..
