14 Times the NFL Was Petty as Hell

Image via Complex Original

Speaking of suggestiveness, Marshawn Lynch was fined for grabbing his boys two separate times during his career. In 2014, it was a very clear gesture, costing him $11,050. The next season, Lynch’s grab was a refined, more subtle junk touch. But the NFL decided it had enough and bumped the fine up to $20,000. Lesson learned: It’s not always the degree of the junk grab, as much as it is the frequency of it. Something for future ballers to keep it mind. 

The NFL reminded us they’re not cool by preventing people from customizing jerseys with everyone's favorite dead gorilla. Then it realized that banning people from wearing jerseys with "Harambe" on the back was ridiculous and a waste of time. 

A late night in 2005 at Lambeau Field birthed one of the most iconic moonings.  And it didn't even involve any nudity. Future Hall of Famer Randy Moss mimicked pulling his pants down, a move popularized by middle school boys, after scoring. The gesture ended up becoming another opportunity for Joe Buck to piss off viewers when he got on his high horse and called it a “disgusting act.”  Turns out even alluding to something crude in an NFL game costs about $10,000. 

Continuing on with the childish theme, in 2008 Wes Welker celebrated a pretty straight forward touchdown by making a snow angel in the endzone. With the twerking and the provocative body grabs, the NFL could maybe construe the gestures as acts of vulgarity that need to be punished. But what is more innocent than a grown man enjoying the gift that New England can’t stop giving? What if every time a kid did a snow angel they had to pay their parents $10,000? 

All it takes is three pumps. Lance Moore and Kenny Stills tested the Key and Peele theory, and it ended in both of them getting a fine, and the Saints getting a 15-yard penalty. Also, “illegal demonstration” is a beautifully vague term for end zone penalties that sounds like it could be used for something actually illegal. 

It’s actually hard to discern who’s being petty whenever T.O. is involved in something because that’s just Owens’ M.O. But much like the NFL, he knows how to capitalize on this: Last year, he teamed with Butterfingers and offered to pay for players’ excessive celebration fines. T.O. is actually making football fun again.

But if T.O. will be remembered for anything, it will be his endzone celebrations that drew the ire of the NFL, including the time he autographed a football on the field and stole a cheerleader's pom-poms. 

Nate Burleson wore a shirt during pre-game intros that read “what up doe,” which in some ways is probably most notable due to the fact that Burleson was using this phrase in 2010. He ended up paying $15,000 for his homemade shirt, which makes almost no sense knowing that his teammate’s fine for giving an opposing fan the middle finger the week prior was one third of that price.

If Chad Ochocinco were trying to bribe a referee, do you really and truly think the man would use a $1? Ochocinco’s cheap stunt cost him $20,000, and the Bengals didn’t even win this call. All around L for the Cincy. 

Donovan McNabb is not much of a showman. In fact, it’s kind of hard to believe that the same guy whose one Super Bowl appearance is centered around an urban legend about nervously throwing up in the huddle, could pull off some A-level trolling. But in a 2008 playoff game against the Giants, McNabb ended an 8-yard run out of bounds and into Giants territory, and then politely checked to see if their sideline telephone was working. The refs threw the flag and took those yards away from the Eagles. 

McNabb probably thought he was really slick after picking up the Giants' sideline phone, but Joe Horn’s endzone cell phone conversation was the greatest football celebration involving a phone of all time. Partially because there’s gotta be a whole lot of prep that went into getting that cellphone into the goal post without anyone in the stadium knowing, but also because it was a flip phone and that alone makes it 10x more satisfying to watch now. Of course, the league sucked any fun out of the play when it fined Horn $30,000(!!!!). 

While a lot of the above fines were maybe deserved, this one was outlandishly unnecessary. All Williams wanted to do was bring awareness to the disease his mother unsuccessfully battled by wearing eyeblack with the phrase “we will find a cure” and pink ribbons in the month of October for breast cancer awareness. Despite negotiations, the league still fined him over $5,000 for the stunt And apparently, it took them five years to fine Williams for a tradition he says he has done every October. 

The NFL completed the reign of restrictions trifecta over the Pittsburgh Steelers, fining Heyward for wearing “ironhead” eyeblack for his father and former NFL player Craig “ironhead” Heyward.