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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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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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