Taunting

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by ajmc

I certainly agree that handling taunting as a live ball situation, and penalizing it as such, would be much more effective as a deterrent, but that would require a major rule philosophy revision

It would result in less consistent effect of penalties. For example, there'd be no deterrent at all if you used the 3-and-1 principle to penalize cases where a player conceding a safety holds the ball overhead at the back of his end zone to egg on defenders (which I've seen) before stepping out of bounds.

A taunt is a taunt regardless of where or when it occurs, so penalizing it as if it were some tactical foul is silly. As I wrote, the best ways to penalize USC would not be done by game officials at all.

Well, I could imagine one effective way that would sort-of involve the officials: someone taunts, the opponent gets one free shot at him -- during or up to 1 min. after the game, but only while the ball is dead.

Robert