The NFL wants players to have fun within the rules.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why the league will be emphasizing sportsmanship and cracking down on violent and sexually suggestive gestures this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnsportsmanlike gestures like simulating or either shooting a gun or brandishing a gun, or inappropriate gestures like a throat slash, or unfortunate sexual gestures, those were up 133% so that is a point of emphasis,\u201d NFL officiating rules analyst Walt Anderson said Thursday. \u201cThe officials have made it a point of emphasis to the clubs. It\u2019s just one of those areas that the league wants to work actively on. There are plenty of ways for players to be able to celebrate, and they come up with some very unique and often entertaining ways so we want them to focus on those and not the inappropriate areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April, the NFL expanded prohibited acts to include banning the \u201cnose wipe\u201d gesture that league executive Troy Vincent said is affiliated with gangs.<\/p>\n
The unsportsmanlike conduct rule now states: \u201cany violent gesture, which shall include but not be limited to a throat slash, simulating firing or brandishing a gun, or using the \u2018nose wipe\u2019 gesture, or an act that is sexually suggestive or offensive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no place in the game to be standing over your opponent,\u201d Vincent said in a video that\u2019s sent to teams. \u201cThere\u2019s no place in the game to have violent gestures. That\u2019s not the game of football. We just have to play by the rules, respect your opponent, respect your teammates and play the game in between the whistles.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL wants players to have fun within the rules. That\u2019s why the league will be emphasizing sportsmanship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-87054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}