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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2386 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 5, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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you can't throw the book at Carter and let Dak get away with instigating that.

Spitting on the field is something that every NFL player does probably 20 times over the course of a normal game. I don’t see how it’s a rules violation. Just because he was talking to another player when he did it doesn’t make it an intentional attempt to offend captivate anything or “trigger” that player.

It's clear from the footage that Dak directly spat at Carter with specific intent to taunt and enrage him. Likely also with some verbal content between the two of them we can't tell from the footage. We can tell Dak knew exactly what he was doing.

In a non football context doing that could easily start a fight. That doesn't suggest that the fight is justified, or a response in kind or with escalation (spitting on instead of at) is justified.

But it's still aggressive and offensive.

If you are going to flag someone for flexing (Nolan Smith I believe?) then spitting at a player is absolutely worthy of punishment regardless of Carter overreaction.

I think you’re projecting things onto the situation that aren’t there. Dak’s explanation, which seems supported by the video evidence, is that Carter was talking shit to Tyler Booker, Dak came over and entered the conversation, and he had to spit, so he spit on the ground. The direction in which he spit was a result of the fact that Booker was in the way of where he would have spit if he’d wanted to make abundantly clear that he wasn’t spitting “at” Carter. Then after he spit, Carter asked him, “Did you just spit at me?” Dak then replied, “Why the fuck would I spit at you?” (A perfectly reasonable question.) Carter then very clearly and intentionally spit on Dak’s chest.

Your stance is that spitting on the ground in front of another man is inherently aggressive and instigatory? Perhaps I’m the wrong person to weigh in, as I’ve never been in a fistfight and don’t always have the strongest theory of mind regarding high-testosterone men with a violent disposition, but this seems obviously wrong to me.

Your stance is that spitting on the ground in front of another man is inherently aggressive and instigatory?

I mean, kind of? Not sure if it's obsolete or some regional deal, but I thought it was pretty universal & ancient that looking a guy in the eye (esp. when trash talk is going on), then spitting off to the side is a gesture of contempt at best, and essentially fighting 'words' in most cases?

See, um -- Darwin (!?), apparently: (thanks Google!)

Spitting seems an almost universal sign of contempt or disgust; and spitting obviously represents the rejection of anything offensive from the mouth. Shakspeare makes the Duke of Norfolk say, “I spit at him—call him a slanderous coward and a villain.” So, again, Falstaff says, “Tell thee what, Hal,—if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face.” Leichhardt remarks that the Australians “interrupted their speeches by spitting, and uttering a noise like pooh! pooh! apparently expressive of their disgust.” And Captain Burton speaks of certain negroes “spitting with disgust upon the ground.” Captain Speedy informs me that this is likewise the case with the Abyssinians. Mr. Geach says that with the Malays of Malacca the expression of disgust “answers to spitting from the mouth;” and with the Fuegians, according to Mr. Bridges “to spit at one is the highest mark of contempt.”

Granted most of his quotes do involve people spitting at others -- which is clearly even more aggressive -- but I personally would not spit to the side while talking to somebody unless I were looking for a fight.

I think their is a kernel of an interesting conversation in discussing the union of impulse control, testosterone, substances of abuse (as are likely present) and how some of this may in fact be beneficial given the sport...but I don't know where to take that so I'll toss it inside.

Instead let's consider the game and metagame of this. Given that we can't take anything either of them say at face value (I assume Big Dom's hand is shoved firmly up Carter's ass and Dak is a pro at this point).

The game - I "believe" Dak probably was trying to instigate given the shit eating grin and the fact that both teams clearly came to play and were chippy as hell. But I think a reasonable person could believe Dak was doing it on purpose, and a different reasonable person could believe it wasn't deliberate.

So the metagame then - if you throw the book at Carter and let Dak "get away with it" it's going to make players feel that being a dick on the field is incredibly useful, as long as they don't get caught. That's a complete failure of the point of emphasis.

Do I think players are going to walk away believing that? Unsure. Certainly Eagles fans and anti-Cowboys fans will mostly think that.

Sidebar-

For the Eagles haters out there, this might be better for the Eagles in the long run, since it might decrease how much of a cap hit Carter causes when his big contract rolls in.

So the metagame then - if you throw the book at Carter and let Dak "get away with it" it's going to make players feel that being a dick on the field is incredibly useful, as long as they don't get caught.

I don’t think that’s the message at all. The league has had on-field shit-talk for as long as it has existed. What they can’t tolerate is overt, visible aggressive actions that can be seen on-camera. I’ve seen the argument that the league’s renewed focus on eliminating visible displays of bad sportsmanship from its TV product is part of a larger push to stop hemorrhaging trust among current parents of children. (The rising clamor over CTE has a lot of parents deeply wary of involving their boys in football; the league can’t afford to alienate them further by broadcasting their players being aggressive and unsportsmanlike toward each other.)

What Dak did has always been permissible under the rules, and, again, doesn’t really seem that bad or out of the ordinary. He literally just spit on the ground in the general direction of Jalen Carter; he’s not responsible for the fact that Carter has the emotional continence of a small child. If it’s that easy to get in Jalen Carter’s head and make him do something bad enough to get him ejected, then perhaps he’s not cut out for this league long-term.

What Dak did has always been permissible under the rules, and, again, doesn’t really seem that bad or out of the ordinary. He literally just spit on the ground in the general direction of Jalen Carter;

So same stuff happens, Carter doesn't respond, a ref catches it... you don't think Dak gets flagged this game?

I absolutely think they'd throw a flag for spitting at Carter while shit talking.

We'd probably be talking about it being an overreaction, but still.

No, I don’t think he gets flagged. Again, nothing that looks bad on camera, just your standard on-field verbal stuff that goes on throughout the entire game and doesn’t get captured unless a guy is mic’d up. (And then even if he is, the team just edits the hell out of whatever audio they capture.) Unless Dak said the same thing to a ref, in which case he’d get flagged.

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