At no point will I ever pretend to understand why the NFL is the way it is, or why it does the things it does. But even this is a bit beyond even the most ridiculous of sporting bureaucratic fantasy plays.
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League officials have smacked a Baltimore Ravens defender with a fairly whopping five-figure fine for the apparent “crime” of drinking a beer with fans after sealing a win.
Defender Marcus Peters helped the Ravens break up a pivotal late-game play from the Buffalo Bills last week, preventing the Bills from converting on 4th down and effectively shutting the game down with a shade over one minute left of the clock.
Following that, Peters zeroed in on a small group of Ravens fans in attendance at the Bills home stadium New Era Field, where he grabbed an ice cold froth dog from a fan and proceeded to pour it into the vague vicinity of his mouth, Stone Cold Steve Austin-style.
THE DEFENSE GETS THE FOURTH-DOWN STOP!!!!@marcuspeters MAKES THE PLAY!!! pic.twitter.com/S0MET4q1qG
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) December 8, 2019
That act, would you believe, was enough to score Peters a USD$14,037 (or around $20,428 in the local dime) fine for “unsportsmanlike conduct”: a lovely catch-all rule the NFL applies to virtually any action that isn’t shutting up and toeing the line.
#Ravens CB Marcus Peters was fined $14,037 for unsportsmanlike conduct — drinking a beer with fans to celebrate his win-sealing pass breakup against the #Bills. 🍺 🍺 🍻
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 14, 2019
Peters, for his part, seems entirely non-plussed about the issue, tweeting out a series of cheers emojis, and even managing to turn the whole thing positive thanks to a very charitable gesture from Bud Lite, who keep hitting these NFL-related PR opportunities out of the dang park. Dilly dilly, and so on.
🍻🍺🍻🍺🍺🍻🍻
— Marcus Peters (@marcuspeters) December 14, 2019
Was good 🍻🍺 https://t.co/YRe85qqsng
— Marcus Peters (@marcuspeters) December 14, 2019
Fined for drinking a beer, but. Insane scenes. If you applied that across all codes the sports of cricket and golf would cease to be literally overnight.
Let the man drink, you fools!
