Players, owners, coaches completely divided on NFL’s emphasis on taunting penalties

The NFL’s new emphasis on taunting penalties that were mildly enforced before has caused a schism between owners, coaches, and players.

One of the most prominent stories of the 2021 NFL season so far is the league’s new points of emphasis regarding taunting. The rules are not new for the 2021 season, but when the NFL decides to make a rule a point of emphasis, it may as well be, because officials are generally going to call (or overcall) whatever those points of emphasis might be. Per NFLPenalties.com, there were 10 total taunting penalties in the 2020 season. There have already been 10 taunting penalties in the 2021 season, and Week 2 isn’t even over yet. Last season, taunting was called 0.04 times per game; this season so far, it’s been called 0.32 times per game. When you have a penalty called nearly 10 times more often from one season to the next, people are going to sit up and take notice.

That has happened already.

In a recent post on the NFLPA’s website, NFLPA President and Cleveland Browns center J.C. Tretter said flat-out that the players did not want these new points of emphasis, no matter what others in the league might say.

There has been a lot of discussion regarding rule changes and new points of emphasis for the upcoming season, with recent comments by ownership and Rich McKay raising some questions among our players about what really goes on. So this month, I wanted to take the time to explain the competition committee and the NFLPA’s role.

The competition committee currently consists of 11 members — 10 members are selected by the commissioner and one member is an NFLPA representative. Players are at the table, where we make our opinions known and our recommendations heard, but we get a token vote.

Still, we take the time to show up and take part in these discussions because ultimately, we are the ones playing the game; yet the NFL has the votes to push through whatever rule they want.

That leads us to the main issue that has brought up this discussion — the new taunting point of emphasis. The majority of fans feel that this is a bad idea – and so do the majority of players. It is frustrating to read comments like the ones reported last week saying that the NFLPA were the ones who wanted this change. I can assure you, as an attendee of the competition committee meeting myself, that was not the case. On the contrary, we would support the removal of this point of emphasis immediately.

The comments by Rich McKay, President of the Atlanta Falcons and the head of the NFL’s Competition Committee, are certainly interesting in context.

“First of all, this point of emphasis has nothing to do with the No Fun League,” McKay said earlier this month. “Where people can ding us on the No Fun League is the celebration rules. Taunting is a different thing. Taunting is trying to entice that other player into some type of activity that is not allowed in football. So this year, the first issue brought to us by the NFLPA was that there was too much player-on-player taunting activity, and there was too much in your face. No. 2, we meet with the NCAA every year, and the college coaches in the meeting say, ‘Hey, when are you guys going to knock down the taunting?’

“Listen, this is brought to us by the players, the NCAA; it’s been in our rules forever. This rule was unanimously supported by the Competition Committee and the NFLPA. I’m not really worried about this one. I’ve seen ones that are tougher and have bigger challenges. This one has been a part of our game for a long time.”

The comments from ownership Tretter refers to come from John Mara, owner of the New York Giants and a high-placed member of the Competition Committee.

“That’s something we discuss every year in the Competition Committee. We get kind of sick and tired of the talking that does go on from time to time on the field. We tried to balance the sportsmanship with allowing the players to have fun and there’s always a fine line there, but none of us like to see that.

“It’s just a question of whether you can have rules that can be enforced and without taking the fun out of the game too, but nobody wants to see a player taunting another player. I know, I certainly don’t. I think the rest of the members of the Competition Committee feel the same way, too.”

Tretter also referred to a rather ridiculous taunting call in the 2021 preseason called on Indianapolis Colts running back Benny LeMay.

“Fans enjoy the intensity and the raw emotion that our players show on the field; and the overwhelming majority of the time, players understand the line between that emotion and bad sportsmanship,” Tretter wrote. “For example, some time ago, the league banned the throat slash celebration, which made sense. It was easily enforced and clear to all. But as we saw in a Colts preseason game – and a number of other preseason games – this attempt at controlling ‘taunting’ is going to be a weekly issue that takes away from the spirit of the game.”

Mara and McKay aren’t the only bigshots on the league side who support the microscope on the rule.

During his most recent appearance on Boston radio station WEEI, Bill Belichick pointed to the idea that players expressing themselves in ways that would run afoul does not meet his standard of what football is supposed to be.

“In general, I don’t really think there’s a place for taunting in the game,” Belichick said Monday morning. “I think that’s poor sportsmanship and it leads to other things. It leads to retaliation, and then where do you draw the line? I think the whole idea of the rule is to kind of nip it in the bud and not let it get started.

“I’m in favor of that. I think that we should go out there and compete and try to play good football and win the game on the field. I don’t think it’s about taunting and poor sportsmanship. That’s not really my idea of what good football is.”

Whether Belichick, Mara, and McKay have a point or not — and most current and former players would agree that they do not — the radical emphasis of the rule this season as opposed to previous seasons seems entirely imbalanced, and as a result, it does put a damper on a game that is emotional at its core just as much as it requires control in furious and chaotic environments.

Former offensive guard Geoff Schwartz, who played for Mara’s Giants in 2014 and 2015, put it as succinctly as is possible.

“This is the league’s second bite at the apple and if fans want to see more emotion, I encourage them to continue to voice that to the league,” Tretter concluded.

If taunting calls continue at this pace, you can expect all kinds of voices to speak out. When players feel unrepresented and unfairly constricted, this rule can lead to larger issues between the NFL and the NFLPA.