NFL in London

Did anyone catch the Saints / Chargers game yesterday? I thought it was interesting the ref's seem to be calling some weird infraction crap and really seemed to punish players who celebrate "excessively". IMHO, not a good showing for our 'o'er the pond' fans.

I think playing over there is stupid. So the Saints were the HOME team? The city of New Orleans loses out on revenue they could have generated from having a home game (parking, tickets, concessions, etc.).

Excessive celebrations and unnecessary roughness calls have been called rather frequently throughout the league this year. The excessive celebration will be called if any player, other than the player who scored participates in a premeditated celebration. So if three guys get together and do the Electric Slide, thats a penalty. Also, excessive celebration will be called if any prop is used. I believe the call you are referring to in London was where the player slid on his knees to the orange endzone pylon marker (similar to a soccer player celebrating a goal). Lame, yes, but the pylon is considered a prop, I guess.

I saw a little but not really enough to comment on the calls. I will say however that in general this is a bad idea scheduling a game overseas. The Saints were officially the home team, but fact is they get 7 home games this year compared to 8 for everyone else.

IrishGuy wrote:Excessive celebrations and unnecessary roughness calls have been called rather frequently throughout the league this year. The excessive celebration will be called if any player, other than the player who scored participates in a premeditated celebration. So if three guys get together and do the Electric Slide, thats a penalty. Also, excessive celebration will be called if any prop is used. I believe the call you are referring to in London was where the player slid on his knees to the orange endzone pylon marker (similar to a soccer player celebrating a goal). Lame, yes, but the pylon is considered a prop, I guess.

Yeah that one. But also a player ran to the sidelines and either taunted or cheered fans. Another one called, but NOT PENALIZED. That was just stupid. If you're going to call a penalty, give the penalty, don't just acknowledge the act is against the rules. They are stupid calls. I mean I can understand we don't want the Randy Moss's of the NFL to unite and perform a gay circle jerk for the crowd, but come on... throwing up hands, pumping fists EXCESSIVELY?

I say just get the crowd pumped up, but don't be an ass and it shouldn't be a penalty.

If you have never seen the movie "Baseketball", it's worth it just for the opening scene. Here is the excessive celebration part of the script.

Announcer: [American football is shown] Manning rolls right. He's got ground at the ten. [Manning begins to dance into the end zone] Then five. Touchdown, Dallas! [Manning throws the ball down and begins to dance]
Narrator: The ideal of sportsmanship began to take a back seat to excessive celebration. [two more players join him, then the rest of the team joins them in a chorus line dancing to "Riverdance"] The athletes caring less about executing the play than planning the vulgar grandstanding that inevitably followed even the most pedestrian of accomplishments. [a player grabs a referee and the referee joins in the dance]