Seattle Seahawks Pete Carroll says NFL ‘opened up.
Pete Carroll, the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, says he understands what the NFL is attempting to achieve by enforcing the taunting rule more rigorously, but he thinks the organization has “opened up a can of worms” by punishing acts that are impossible for players to avoid in the heat of battle.
“You’ve got a lot of players dealing with those explosive times, and they’ve got to really shift their attention away from the opponent,” Carroll said on Monday. “It’s an interesting idea. It’s simply difficult to keep track of everything.”
The taunting rule isn’t new, but the NFL has made it a priority for officials to enforce in 2021. According to ESPN Stats & Information analysis, the 11 taunting penalties called in the first two weeks already match the amount for the entire 2020 regular season. In 2019, there were nine.
In the first two games, the Seahawks have been penalized twice for taunting: receiver DK Metcalf in the opener and cornerback D.J. Reed on Sunday.
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Carroll was responding to a hit on Reed that occurred in the fourth quarter of Seattle’s overtime defeat to the Tennessee Titans.
Reed pumped his arms while staring at receiver A.J. Brown after successfully covering a long pass that went incomplete — a typical celebration that would have gone unpunished in previous seasons.
Carroll was upset with the rule, not with the official’s choice to flag Reed on that particular play.
After the game, strong safety Jamal Adams had a similar opinion, calling the penalty “ticky-tack.”
Adams replied, “Come on, dude.” “You’re robbing the game of football of its passion and emotions.
That is, at the end of the day, the rule. We need to be more strategic in our approach.”
Carroll used another example from Sunday’s game to demonstrate how to avoid taunting penalties.
After one play, he claimed, an unnamed player “made a really forceful action,” but his body was slightly turned away from the opponent, so it didn’t seem as if he was celebrating anybody.
“What we’re talking about is constantly celebrating with your teammates, and we’ve been practicing it and making a big deal about it since it’s one of the major new things that they’ve stressed,” he said. “As a result, I don’t believe it is detrimental to the game.
I simply believe it’s difficult for the boys to accomplish right now. They just need to study and train, and we must improve our performance.
I need to do a better job of placing us in scenarios and making sure we’re closely monitoring it and assisting our men in their training.”
The Seahawks committed five 15-yard penalties against Tennessee, including Reed’s. They collected ten penalties for a total of 100 yards.
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