Cincinnati Bengals players would like some clarity on the latest controversial taunting flag that didn’t go their way.
The latest occurred over the weekend on a key third-down stop during a loss to the San Franciso 49ers. Long story short, safety Vonn Bell got involved in a breakup and pointed at an opponent after the play was over.
Officials threw a flag and gave the 49ers a first down. Days later, it has key names like cornerback Chidobe Awuzie asking for the rule to at least be applied evenly, as captured by Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com:
“That’s just a ridiculous call on my end. I just don’t really think that was a taunting penalty. There’s things in the game, it’s just gamesmanship, it’s not necessarily like flexing on somebody or standing over them or stepping on them. It’s just such a ticky-tack type of call. It’s kind of hard to judge what is taunting because later in the game you see the guy hit Joe Mixon and stand over him and flex on him and there was no taunting call. So what is taunting exactly? And it’s affecting games and we see it across the league that it’s affecting games so it needs to be more accountability for that call. I don’t think it should be called as often as it is.”
Accountability for the call would be nice. Based on the precedent that officiating crew set with the call on Bell early in the game, there should have been several more taunting flags thrown throughout the game.
Granted, Bell has to know the rule by now, as silly as it might be. But asking for it to be called evenly doesn’t seem like it’s asking too much.
Worst of all, Bengals players revealed what Bell said that helped earn the flag and it wasn’t that bad, either.
