Randy Moss in Trouble with NFL for Pretend Mooning in Green Bay

The sport media of America have once again told the nation, nay the world, that the end is nigh. They have managed to work themselves into a tizzy over a stunt that Minnesota Vikings troublemaker Randy Moss performed after scoring a touchdown against the Green Bay Packers. He pretended to moon the Packer fans. For those unfamiliar with American slang, "to moon" means to expose the derrière in a mocking fashion. Apparently, the media believe that the only people who watch NFL games are 95-year-old nuns.

Mr. Moss, of the wild afro-hair style, has what might be charitably called a history. In 1999, he received a $25,000 fine (reduced from $40,000) for squirting an official with a water bottle (this in a league where it is customary to dump a barrel of Gatorade on the winning coach). In 2001, he had a shouting match with corporate sponsors on the team bus, which cost him $15,000 and some time in anger management classes. The classes didn’t take, as he was fined $1,500 by a judge in Minnesota for bumping a traffic cop with his car in Minneapolis (regular people would have been jailed for assault). Mr. Moss gets $5 million a year, so these fines are merely pocket change. Now, recall that Mr. Moss didn’t actually expose himself; he merely pretended to do so. In short, he is in trouble, and has been slapped with a $5,000 fine, for miming (would that mimes in big cities faced similar punishment).

Of course, there is more to it than Mr. Moss being terminally 15-years-old. Head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, Tony Dungy, explained the motivations of the sophomoric Viking. Mr. Dungy told the press, "Anyone who has played in the NFC Central knows what that's about. The fans in Green Bay have a tradition in the parking lot after the game where they moon the visiting team's bus. It's kind of a unique send-off." Indeed, exposing one’s sit-upon is something of a macho act when the temperature in Green Bay, Wisconsin is often below 0°F after the Packers play. Mr. Moss was merely taunting the crowd as he would have been taunted had the Vikings lost, but they didn’t.

However, the NFL powers that be have decided to fine him for what the rule book calls "obscene gestures or other actions construed as being in poor taste." One wonders what the fine would have been had Mr. Moss held up a banner demanding the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. This is the same league, though, that had to create a rule to stop end zone celebrations after players score. Granted, the dances were getting out of hand, but they didn’t seem as daft as most post-goal soccer celebrations, some of which have homoeroticism to rival anything in San Francisco’s Castro district, or a British public school for that matter.

It is undoubtedly too much to expect of players that they could exhibit the same class as the late, great Gail Sayres when he scored. After embarrassing another defense, he would trot to the referee and flip the ball to him. That was it. For Mr. Sayres a celebration beyond that was unthinkable. To him, it was just another touchdown. There was nothing special about it. He’d be in the end zone again. Mr. Moss is in a different league, in so many ways. Yet, somehow, it is the NFL that has managed to look bad here by its over-reaction.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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