Turns out that NFL referees dislike policing celebration as much as any reasonable person dislikes having to see celebration policed!


As Scott Green, head of the NFL Referees Association, said on the subject of celebration penalties in an interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio today (transcribed by Pro Football Talk):

“Nothing is worse than someone going 80 yards for a touchdown and then we’re trying to figure out does that warrant a flag for what he’s doing in the end zone,” Green said. “We don’t really enjoy that. If we could get to a point where it would simply be fines by the league, that would be great. The issue we’ll still have is that guys can get pretty creative out there. The question of whether it’s a foul or not a foul, hopefully we’ll get closer to more of a black-and-white situation.”


Players hate being patrolled this way; coaches hate having to deal with these silly penalties; fans hate having to watch personality and energy stripped from the game; referees, logically, hate having to be the face of all this.

So the NFL, of course, seems to have zero interest in getting rid of them. Of course.