Take Tuesday: Let Antonio Brown Twerk

Antonio Brown’s skills broke football and then his butt broke the Internet. After the greatest receiver in football scored the second of his two touchdowns in his game, he was penalized for twerking in celebration. Now I’m not a rules expert like Mike Carey, but I can say that I am absolutely down with twerking. I’m more offended that twerking is penalized than anyone could be offended by twerking. As a Steeler fan, I think that if Antonio Brown twerked and was penalized after every touchdown, it would be worth it. Also, it would be a lot of twerking.

The Steelers can’t twerk without getting in trouble, but I can. Every time the Steelers score a touchdown this season, I’m going to twerk. This is going to be the key to winning Super Bowl ring number seven.

The NFL season kicked off on Thursday night with a rematch of last season’s Super Bowl between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers. The Broncos won again, 21-20 as Carolina kicker Graham Gano missed a 50-yard field goal wide left.

As it had been in the Super Bowl, the Denver pass rush was the big key to the game. Cam Newton was only sacked three times, but there were numerous other times when the Broncos hit Cam Newton after he released the ball. Many hits were so long after Cam Newton released the ball that they should have been called roughing the passer.

For whatever reason, Cam Newton doesn’t get calls that are standard for other NFL quarterbacks. Even though he is 6’5” and 245 pounds doesn’t mean he isn’t a quarterback. Just because he moves around and can run with the ball doesn’t mean he isn’t a quarterback. If Cam Newton is passing the ball, you shouldn’t be able to hit him in the head or below his knees. If Cam Newton has released the football, you shouldn’t be able to finish your hit and drive him into the ground. The quarterback is the most important person on the field. Cam Newton is one of the biggest starts in the NFL. The referees need to do a better job keeping him safe so that he can stay on the field every Sunday.

Speaking of staying on the field, late in the game on Thursday night, Cam Newton was trying to lead a game winning drive for the Panthers. With under a minute left on second and ten from the Panthers 47 yard line, Broncos safety Darian Stewart made helmet-to-helmet contact with Cam Newton. Cam Newton lay on the field, rolled around, was helped up, went back to the huddle and continued the drive. Now maybe Cam was just lying on the ground trying to sell the call; after all, plenty of other roughing the passer calls had gone uncalled throughout the game. In any case, no player should be allowed to stay in the game after getting hit in the head and rolling around on the ground. I realize that nobody wants an NFL game to come down to Derek Anderson attempting to lead a game-winning drive, but it’s better to jeopardize the end of a game than to jeopardize the rest of a player’s life. What happened on Thursday night was not okay. Establishing a concussion protocol that can protect star players at crucial points in big games is a big challenge for the NFL. When everything is on the line, players are going to want to stay in the game when it isn’t safe for them to do so.

The NFL and the NFLPA need to protect players from themselves. You can’t play through a concussion. If players aren’t going to take themselves out of the game, doctors need to step in. What happened on Thursday night was unacceptable.

RGIII lasted one game with the Browns before landing on injured reserve with a shoulder injury. At least RGIII was already damaged goods before he got to Cleveland so this one can’t be entirely on the Browns. It’s like when Eddie Lacy sits down on a piece of IKEA furniture. You knew it was coming. If anything, this is a good situation because Browns fans are already used to misery at the quarterback position. I’m looking forward to learning who is on Cleveland’s quarterback depth chart this week.

16-0 Alert
The best thing about week one is every team is either on track to go 16-0 or 0-16 which is super exciting. The Patriots and Steelers looked like the most promising teams because they are getting key players back in the coming weeks. The Browns and Rams look like the biggest dumpster fires.

Tweet of the Week

Dumbest Decision of the Week
Washington gave Josh Norman $15 million dollars to play cornerback. Washington did not put Josh Norman on Antonio Brown for most of the game.

11 Things I Think (Because I am smarter than Peter King)
1. Here are the teams I think might be for real: Jaguars, Buccaneers, and Raiders.
2. Trevor Siemian’s name sounds kind like a synonym for “ape” so those Harambe jokes are never going away.
3. Eagles fans should definitely get their hopes up about their team. I mean they beat the Browns. Very impressive.
4. The Vikings are probably going to be okay without Teddy Bridgewater if their defense is going to score two touchdowns a game.
5. Good move by Raiders coach Jack Del Rio to go for two and beat the Saints. Teams should go for two almost every time.
6. Imagine how good the Steelers are going to be next season when they have LeVeon Bell and Martavis Bryant and Markus Wheaton and Ladarius Green back.
7. Monday night could have been the last time ESPN lets the retiring Chris Berman do play by play for an NFL game. Next year they should replace him with Jim Tomsula.
8. Victor Cruz is allowed to salsa but Antonio Brown isn’t allowed to twerk? Interesting.
9. A lot of photographers were kneeling during the national anthem trying to photograph Colin Kaepernick. Interesting.
10. Maybe Terrance Williams was worried he might run into Skip Bayless on the sideline so he stayed in bounds to avoid taking that chance.
11. Maybe the Rams moved to Los Angeles because they were looking for someone who could figure out how to use Tavon Austin.

Closing Limerick
He always comes through on third down
Catch the ball, two feet on the ground
He’s shaking his butt
Two touchdowns, say what?
His name is Antonio Brown