Washington Redskins cornerback Josh Norman won’t be able to mime a bow and arrow celebration anymore, and he is not happy about it.
Washington’s camp got a visit from NFL official Carl Johnson on Sunday, who made clear that, despite relaxing the league’s celebration policy, miming weapons of any sort remains illegal. That didn’t sit well with Norman, who feels he is being singled out.
“You’re just picking on one person here,” Norman said, via John Keim of ESPN. “[Brandin] Cooks has been doing it for years, and now all of a sudden you want to quit and stop it? Why is that?”
Norman pointed out that the NFL is perfectly fine with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots shooting things off after scores.
“You can shoot a cannon in a stadium, or you can shoot a musket in a stadium as well,” Norman said. “If one of them is bad and looked at as dangerous, how come not all of them are looked at in that way? … When someone shoots an imaginary bow and arrow up in the sky, that’s a penalty? It’s not like you’re shooting at somebody. You’re shooting up. It gets the crowd excited, something to where everyone’s getting pumped up, so why take that away? What for?
“You don’t come back to the locker room and come get a bow and arrow and shoot somebody. Like, come on, man, let’s have fun. Let us do something to where we feel excited. We’re not out here shooting someone with a gun. I can understand that. It’s shooting a bow and arrow. An imaginary bow and arrow. Why is that violence? You saying the people that came before us were violent? That’s how I see it.”
To be fair, Norman was penalized when he did this last season, too, so it’s not like this is suddenly inconsistent. Still, it’s all a bit silly to consider a bow and arrow celebration to be violent.
