FRISCO, Texas -- That Jason Garrett would be one of the louder voices behind the NFL’s decision to relax the celebration rules in 2017 seems funny.

After all, Garrett threw only 11 touchdown passes in his career, but he never scored one himself. And, he is as Ivy League as they get with his Princeton degree.

But at the NFL owners meetings in March Garrett and Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh injected reason into the discussion.

“I think as much as anything else where we came at it as a coaching group was just to have a common sense approach to it,” Garrett said. “It just seemed like sometimes we had some rules in place that we didn’t really understand why those rules existed. There seemed to be some inconsistency to it. So we had a long discussion as a group and just tried to come up with some common sense parameters for how to instill some of the fun back into the game after somebody scores a touchdown without distracting from the team concept. We made some recommendations as a coaching group, and I think they used some of them.”

Ezekiel Elliott was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct last season when he playfully jumped into the Salvation Red Kettle after a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While he was not fined by the league for the celebration, it’s not clear yet whether he would be penalized this season should he do the same.

The fact that sometimes players were penalized for doing “snow angels,” for celebrations and other times were not had Garrett perplexed. He still scratches his head over a 2010 penalty on Marc Colombo following a Jason Witten touchdown against the Tennessee Titans. Witten and Colombo did a chest bump but the right tackle lost his balance and was flagged for going to the ground, which was a no-no.

Also that year, Miles Austin leap-frogged Roy Williams on a touchdown celebration and was penalized.

Garrett is clear he does not want celebrations to devolve into violent and or lewd displays.

“It’s a tricky deal. We don’t want to take it away from the team. I think everybody understands that,” Garrett said. “But at the same time, football is fun. It’s fun to be part of the National Football League. For the players to have some fun and show some personality, I think that’s a positive thing for the league.”