Sione Pouha: Stevie Johnson’s Airplane Celebration Disrespected 9/11 Victims

A lot has been made of Stevie Johnson distastefully mocking Plaxico Burress on Sunday and dropping two potential game-winning touchdowns.  Johnson deserves all the criticism he has gotten for all of that, but until recently not much had been said about the second half of Johnson’s touchdown celebration — when he mimicked a plane going to the ground.  At the time many believed it was the fake gunshot that drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, but it wasn’t until Johnson went to the ground in celebration that the refs threw a flag.  Jets defensive tackle Sione Pouha thought the second half of Stevie’s showboating was just as disrespectful as the first.

“Us being from New York, we like to hold ourselves to some integrity, and that airplane thing, in my opinion, was kind of a dagger considering the circumstances of remembrance of what we just had on Sept. 11,’’ Pouha said according to the NY Post. “It was just unprofessional. We all stand for pride around here, and that’s a sacred moment for a lot of people and it’s a very sobering moment.”

Time to draw the line.  Yes, Johnson acted like an idiot in pretending to shoot himself in the leg and yes, he may have cost the Bills a win with his lack of concentration.  But he was not taking aim at anything that had to do with 9/11 when he imitated a plane going down.  In case Pouha has forgotten, the name of the team in New York that he plays for is the Jets, and has been for a long time.  Santonio Holmes, Burress, and some other Jet players often imitate an airplane after they score a touchdown.  Johnson was simply poking fun at that.  Saying he was being insensitive toward 9/11 victims is just a poor attempt at piling it on.