The NFL’s dumb rules led to Husain Abdullah being penalized

To get a few things out of the way from the start: no, the NFL did not flag Husain Abdullah because of his religion. Abdullah wasn’t targeted because he is Muslim, and this wasn’t the NFL making some big statement about cracking down on prayer. Instead, the NFL accidentally flagged a player for praying because its rules are unwieldy and judgment is left to humans trying to process what’s happening in front of them at breakneck speed.

Let’s recap what happened on Monday night just before midnight. Husain Abdullah intercepted Tom Brady, ending a very bad night for the Patriots quarterback, and ran it back for a touchdown. He slid to his knees to pray, and was flagged for excessive celebration.

Or, in visual form:

The reasoning goes that because he slid, it violated a rule about celebrating on the ground. The exception to the “going to the ground” rule is that it’s not a penalty if the player does so to pray.

That’s where things get confusing. The referee who threw the flag, shown above, is the linesman closest to Abdullah. He watched the whole thing unfold, then threw the flag after the play was over (he can be seen throwing the flag behind Tom Brady in the shot showing the quarterback walking off the field). It’s a pretty clear sign that the ref missed that Abdullah was praying, but the slide allows a somewhat neat and tidy cover. The NFL admitted as much on Tuesday morning.

This is what happens when the NFL tries to police a nearly infinite number of celebrations while placing rules on what’s excessive and not. A player can make a Superman gesture across his chest, but move one hand up a bit and it’s a throat slash and penalty. Dunking a football is not allowed, but jumping into the stands is (because that’s not in the field of play, you see). Or, in this case, going to the ground is not allowed, but is if the celebrator is praying.

At some point we’ll end up getting out yardsticks to determine if a player slid too far into a prayer. And if he slid right off the field of play, maybe it’s not a penalty at all.

It’s a case of the NFL trying to police everything, while also creating line item exceptions for certain things. Instead of choosing the easier options: either every celebration is a penalty or no celebrations are penalties, the NFL creates more headaches for itself and earns its No Fun League reputation by trying to find a middle ground that includes defining just how much is too much.

And this is how a player that slides to the ground to pray turns into the NFL accidentally making an implied statement about religious beliefs. The optics get all weird when a referee doesn’t quite recognize the form of prayer Abdullah was partaking in and deems it excessive. And the referee was put into a bad situation because the rule is complicated and filled with this but not that exceptions.

In conclusion, everyone is arguing semantics about a very dumb rule. The NFL!