The NFL has made a lot of rules over the last number of years. some of them good and of course, some of them are bad. The one consistent thing is that the NFL is not a fan of celebrations. The NFL fans love it, but who cares about them right? The NFL has been cracking down a lot on the celebratory motions, but none greater than dunking.
Called the NFL Dunk Rule, the rule states one cannot dunk the ball like a basketball on the field goal post. Calvin Johnson was known for doing this and he claims he wants to still do it.
“I’m still going to dunk, I just won’t touch the rim.” Johnson said Saturday at his football camp, according to the Detroit Free Press.
According to NFL.com, NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino confirmed in March that a rule already was in place against using the football, not just the goal posts, as a prop in celebrations. Penalizing dunks was an enforcement of that rule, as opposed to a new edict on the books.
The refs just won’t cut Johnson a break. Unlike with the regular celebrations, the NFL actually had reasons for stopping the dunks. Many players have bent or brought down goal posts by doing this. This takes away time from games to reset the posts and it can also bring on damage to them, causing the NFL or teams to replace the posts. Thus the rule is not so much about safety or random fun sucking. It’s more so about the time of games, and cost.
So at least the NFL has good reasons for what they do more than just something stupid like, “celebrations offend the other team” or something along those lines.
Still though, despite the rule…a lot of players may still want to do the dunk. It took time for players to understand and abide by many rules the NFL put in place. So it would not be crazy to think that some would have issue with it. We may also see a lot of random variations of things involving dunks away from the goal posts just to spite the NFL from players.
It all depends on how Johnson can get away with dunking or some sort of variation to it that can make him feel good about himself in some ways. At least we have reasons to watch Lions’ games now right?
