Roger Goodell on excessive celebration penalties: ‘Our players are role models’

Roger Goodell defended the NFL’s increased emphasis on excessive celebration penalties, saying that the league’s players are role models.

Goodell said Wednesday in a news conference that even seemingly innocuous infractions are being penalized because players are expected to hold themselves to high professional standards.

“The [competition] committee looks at this every year,” Goodell said of the penalties, via Mark Maske of the Washington Post. “This is one of those things — I’ve been in the league 35 years. I don’t think there’s been a year where we didn’t look at this issue.

“It comes down to balancing a lot of issues, the professional standards that we want to uphold. We do believe that our players are role models and others look at that at the youth level. So that’s important for us to hold that standard up. And it’s part of being a professional. So that’s one element of it.”

Goodell said that taunting was simply a matter of sportsmanship.

“We have taunting, which is a significant issue, and taunting fouls are up this year,” Goodell said. “It’s probably a combination of making that a point of emphasis. But we look at that as sportsmanship. And that can lead to, in most cases when somebody taunts somebody else, somebody reacts and that can escalate quickly.”

Goodell says this, but some players want clarity on how the rules are being applied. It doesn’t sound like Goodell plans to back off the directive, though, and that will probably dismay many fans.