Fist fights and Tony Romo calling out players highlight this week’s WTF moments
Even with a bye week, the Steelers jumped up in the AFC standings, not only in their division but in the conference overall. With the weekend off, what could possibly be happening in the NFL that would get me to find any WTF moments to write about this week?
Though the Steelers had the weekend off to relax and refresh, players around the league appeared to let their furstrations get the best of them. Fights broke out, but not just in one game, but several!
WTF!
The main event fight on Sunday was a battle between Jaguars CB Jalen Ramsey and Bengals WR http://gty.im/870586044 . The two were clearly talking trash when all hell broke loose. Green tackled Ramsey and the two tussled and threw punches before both being ejected.
Let’s rewind: Green plays a wide receiver, a position which relies on using their hands and fingers to catch passes. Was it really a good idea to throw punches at Jalen Ramsey’s helmet?! WTF!
The Cardinals and 49ers game saw Haason Reddick, Carlos Hyde, and Frostee Rucker involved in another skirmish that ended in punches thrown and ejections of all players involved.
Tampa Bay shut down QB Jameis Winston due to a shoulder injury during the game. On the sideline, Winston enters the field to have some choice words with Saints CB MarShon Lattimore. This instigated Bucs WR Mike Evans to come over and blindside Lattimore, which led to more punches thrown, but surprisingly no ejections.
But if you want a real WTF from the wild weekend, look no further than the Raiders and Dolphins, where an Oakland lineman threw punches to back of an opponent’s helmet with not so much as a flag thrown, but in the same game, Raiders TE Lee Smith, obviously joking around helmet-butted a friend on the other team and received a 15-yard penalty.
WTF?!
Out of all of this nonsense, the strangest outcome is that the only player handed down a suspension by the NFL was Mike Evans. WTF? I am not sure I understand this selective punishment system the league currently has in place, but if they think it is going to deter this behavior in the future, they may want to be more consistent in their punishment system.
Moving away from the on-field fights, the Sunday Night game had a last-second WTF moment before halftime, when Chiefs QB Alex Smith had exactly one second remaining. Most of the time, teams will try a Hail Mary or depending on the situation, take a knee and head to the locker room.
Not the Chiefs!
Smith throws a short pass to Tyreek Hill, in what can only be described as an OMG WTF moment as he bobbed and weaved his way to the end zone. No one, and I mean not a single Cowboys defender saw that coming.
The Chiefs ended up losing, but what a play…
At this point in the season, I thought the WTF moments for kickers would be over, as the bad ones would be weeded out nine weeks into the year. Seahawks kicker Blair Walsh had never missed two attempts under 50 yards in the same game until Sunday… where he missed three field goals total.
Sticking with kickers, how about Dolphins kicker Cody Parkey missing an extra point and following up with an unexpected onside kick… in which he recovered it himself!
Cody Parkey’s onside kick looks very similar to what he did at Auburn. #AuburnInTheNFL #WarEagle pic.twitter.com/YHfWA6jbJe
— E2C Network: The Auburn Experience (@E2C_Network) November 6, 2017
Kudos to Parkey for not only the perfect kick but taking a shot and holding onto the ball at the end of that play. (You could sense Raiders coach Jack Del Rio saying “WTF” on the sideline!)
However, the best, and I mean the BEST WTF of the weekend was Tony Romo, now a broadcaster for CBS, calling out Chiefs CB Marcus Peters lack of tackling:
Peters doesn’t want to tackle… He’s really good out there at the corner, off coverage, but tackling? He makes Deion Sanders look good at tackling sometimes.
Here’s the clip:
Earlier this week, I QRT’d this video of Marcus Peters not tackling. Well check this one out and listen to Romo pic.twitter.com/czUNfCCEkb
— Cowboys Nation (@CowboysNation) November 5, 2017
Somehow, Romo managed to take shots at Peters and former NFL CB Deion Sanders for their lack of interest in making tackles. “Neon” Deion didn’t think it was funny, as he got defensive on NFL Network later in the evening:
Tony, I tried my best to take the high road … but I don’t know the address to the high road, so I got to come at you, man. Ten years as a starter you were 2-4 in the playoffs. [You] ain’t won nothing. I tried to bury the hatchet.
We both work for CBS. I went and shook your hand and said ‘Tony, you’re doing a great job this year!’. I thought that would be it, but not unless you keep on shooting at me.
Tony, what’s going on man? I got a gold jacket that I didn’t buy. Dak says hi, and bye. Tony, leave me alone, man. I got a lot of ammunition, man. How many interceptions, 19 in 2012? Come on, you threw to everybody but me. You know you never won the big one. You know you never won the big one, so stop. Leave me alone.
Funny coming from a guy who once said “they don’t pay me to tackle.”
WTF?
