A regular analysis of strategy, decisions and calls that impacted the week of NFL play -- with help from ESPN senior analytics specialist Brian Burke, among other resources.

Two NFL teams publicly mock a league policy. A third publishes an entire website to discredit league discipline. A coach subtweets a disputed suspension. A star player posts a video in which he says: "We really don't have reason to trust the NFL." Another performs a "robot" celebration to lampoon the league's expectations for player behavior.

Viewed independently, these episodes are simple and entertaining morsels that feed our quick-take consumption of sports culture. Taken together, however, they represent an unprecedented rebellion against NFL authority from almost every facet of its realm. Unrest is not uncommon in pro football, or in any industry, but the public display we have seen in recent years has been both stark and damaging.

This space is normally reserved for analysis of Sunday's on-field developments, but it is impossible this week to ignore -- of all things -- two tweets from the Eagles and Browns. After scoring touchdowns, each team tweeted a GIF of an electronic football game. Both teams used a paper football attached to a wooden stick to provide a crude representation of how they scored.

The tweets, of course, were in clear reference to the NFL's recent decision to enforce a long-standing policy that prohibits teams from distributing digital game video on their own during games. The Carolina Panthers also mocked the edict in Week 5, tweeting the words "AndersonToBenjamin.gif" (instead of the actual GIF) after a touchdown, but later deleted it.

You would have to be a big NFL policy geek to care about this particular pillow fight. In essence, teams are upset that the league decided a month into the season to begin enforcing, with fines, a policy that had long been ignored. Teams want to post video to drive engagement, a common social media strategy, but the league and its broadcasters want to control distribution and maximize monetization from a central source.

The details don't matter as much as the decision by teams to dispute it openly. This isn't merely a few social media interns getting cute. If it were, you can be certain the Browns and Eagles would have deleted the tweets immediately. Instead, as of early Monday morning, they had been either retweeted or liked nearly 15,000 times.

I view this sarcastic protest in line with other public dissents we've seen recently. Remember, the New England Patriots still maintain a website that questions whether the league's integrity was "seriously compromised" by its Deflategate investigation and discipline. A year later, the Kansas City Chiefs publicly criticized the league's "inconsistent enforcement of its tampering policies."

Earlier this season, New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton tweeted a photograph of the Patriots' tribute to suspended quarterback Tom Brady. Payton, whom the NFL suspended for the 2012 season as part of its contested findings in the Bountygate scandal, said he was one of a few people who could "understand what Tom's going through."

Three weeks ago, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman posted a video on The Players' Tribune encouraging players to view the NFL as an employer that "really could care less" about its players. In what was an extraordinary indictment of the NFL's corporate morality, Sherman said the league is such a "bottom-line business" that it will ignore its own guidelines for removing injured players from games if it compromises revenue generation.

Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman has not been shy on his thoughts on the players' relationship with their employers. Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

And finally, in Week 5, Browns receiver Andrew Hawkins placed the football on the ground after scoring a touchdown and walked like a robot to the sideline. Later, he told reporters that his intent was to "troll the whole situation" amid the NFL's renewed emphasis on sportsmanship.

Look, the NFL has never operated in complete harmony. Its history, like that of almost every other collection of human beings, is pocked with public disputes. Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders until his death in 2011, once sued the league, and for decades he undermined its attempts to rein him in. There were two player strikes in a five-year period in the 1980s. Former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon once protested then-commissioner Pete Rozelle's policy against wearing corporate logos by donning a headband that read "Rozelle."

Notably, Rozelle laughed and said McMahon's stunt was "funny as hell." He didn't rescind a $5,000 fine, but everyone moved on with the appropriate level of gravity.

This feels different, however. Perhaps it seems more intense because it's happening now, but the collective audacity of NFL employees implies a lack of respect for its authority and -- worse -- a distrust in the way it operates. It feeds a public notion that the league is a bungling business, not one that stands atop the economic food chain in the sports industry, and invites an erosion of its corporate reputation.

The league hasn't cared much about these ancillary issues as its popularity and television ratings remained high. All publicity is good publicity, as long as the money is rolling in.

But at a time when ratings have dropped for the first time in recent memory, all potential causes -- big, small, real or imagined -- must be taken seriously. When your business is under consistent criticism from its own members, and when they are aggrieved or cavalier enough to broadcast it in a way that mocks the league's centralized authority, it's time to pay attention.

Going for two before one

With his team trailing 28-19 late in the fourth quarter Sunday, Browns coach Hue Jackson took immediate criticism by ordering a two-point conversion attempt rather than an extra point after Terrelle Pryor's 5-yard touchdown. Make no mistake: Jackson made the right decision, one that has roots in the type of dispassionate and unconventional approach the Browns are trying to implement throughout their organization.

It's true that an extra point, which place-kickers are hitting at a rate of 95 percent this season, would have made it a one-score game against the Tennessee Titans with two minutes, seven seconds remaining. A missed two-point conversion, which has occurred on 39 percent of attempts in 2016, left the Browns needing two scores.

Browns running back Duke Johnson rushes for a touchdown in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game at Tennessee. Jim Brown/USA TODAY Sports

But either way, the Browns were going to need a two-point conversion to win. Doesn't it make sense to know the result of that attempt as early as possible?

If the conversion is successful, well, that's great. But if it isn't, and you'll need two scores to avoid a loss, it's better to know that at the 2:07 mark than it is to find out with, say, 27 seconds left.

Here's how Burke -- ESPN's resident analytics expert -- put it during an email exchange we had Sunday night: "In general, if you know you need two touchdowns and one two-point conversion, you're better off revealing the result of that two-point conversion attempt early in the process. That way, you can adjust your pace and strategy with whatever time is left accordingly."

In this case, the Browns didn't have much time to work with. But Jackson chose the better of two lousy options.

Two cases for reviewing pass interference

Sunday brought a pair of highly disputed officiating decisions that had huge impacts in the fourth quarters of their respective games. Both were understandable in the realm of human imperfection, but they once again raised a case for allowing replay review to at least occasionally assist with judgment calls.

Referee Jeff Triplette's crew penalized New York Giants cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie for pass interference, a 30-yard mark-off that put the Baltimore Ravens in position for the go-ahead touchdown with two minutes, 14 seconds remaining. Replays showed Rodgers-Cromartie taking inside position against receiver Breshad Perriman from the start and, at worse, lightly maintaining his leverage with his right arm, all while looking for the ball in the air.

Meanwhile, referee Tony Corrente's crew did not throw a flag after Sherman clearly grabbed Atlanta Falcons receiver Julio Jones' right arm as Jones tried to haul in a fourth-down pass in Seattle. The ball fell incomplete, securing the Seahawks' 26-24 victory.

Most NFL pass plays have some level of contact between receiver and defender, and the NFL appropriately leaves it to the judgment of officials as to whether the contact "significantly hinders an eligible player's opportunity to catch the ball," as the rulebook defines the penalty. But a few cases lead to the kind of "clear and obvious" mistakes that the NFL uses replay to overturn for other penalties.

As I've written before, the Canadian Football League has been reviewing defensive pass interference for three years. It has not caused the collapse of the nation, nor has it been used often. Occasionally, though, it could help. Sunday provided two examples.

"I don't consider the ball as a prop on that one," Jay Gruden said of Vernon Davis' celebration. "I might've done the same thing, but now we know and he won't ever do it again." AP Photo/Alex Brandon

A football isn't a basketball

We've spent plenty of time this season hashing through what seems to be the peak "No Fun League." Taunting penalties have spiked, and celebrations have been penalized by the letter of the rulebook, as the league doubles down on emphasis on sportsmanship.

So despite complaints from all corners, no one should have been surprised when referee John Parry's crew penalized Washington Redskins tight end Vernon Davis for shooting a "jump shot" over the crossbar after catching a 13-yard touchdown against the Philadelphia Eagles.

The celebration was benign and familiar, but technically it violated Rule 12, Section 3, Article 1(g), which prohibits "[u]sing the ball or any other object including pylons, goal posts, or crossbars, as a prop."

In this case, Davis used both the football and the crossbar as a prop. They were stand-ins for a basketball and a basket, respectively. NFL senior vice president of officiating Dean Blandino confirmed that analysis via video Sunday night.

Make no mistake, it's insane to realize that I just typed 162 words about the consequence of a football player pretending to shoot a basket after a touchdown. (The fallout was significant, though; the ensuing 15-yard penalty forced a short kickoff, which the Eagles returned 84 yards for a touchdown.)

And as I said earlier this month on "Outside the Lines," it's difficult to understand exactly whom the NFL is trying to protect with such strict interpretations of sportsmanship. But the rule against props has been on the books for years. Like it or not, it will be enforced this season without fail.