The NFL will continue to stress strict enforcement of its sportsmanship-related rules by its on-field officials this season.
That means the officials will be expected to keep a close eye on players violating the league’s rules prohibiting taunting opponents, illegal celebrations and fighting, at the behest of the NFL’s competition committee.
The approach was confirmed to Front Office Sports by a source familiar with the views of the NFL and competition committee. The league also cited that stance last week when it fined the Cowboys and Saints $500,000 each for their actions during a fight-marred joint practice.
“The Competition Committee has made sportsmanship–including at joint practices–a point of emphasis over the past several years,” the NFL said in a written statement announcing the Cowboys and Saints fines. “All clubs were reminded by memo prior to training camp of their responsibility in preventing unsportsmanlike behavior at joint practices that has the potential to result in injury.”
There were 28 taunting penalties called league-wide last season. That was up from 21 such penalties in the 2024 season; 18 in 2023; and 22 in 2022, though players were warned about the taunting rules before the 2025 season started. The recent high came with 61 taunting penalties called in the 2021 season.
Taunting violations and illegal celebrations are 15-yard penalties.
NFL team owners approved a proposal by the competition committee this offseason to allow instant replay officials at the league’s game-day officiating center in New York to intervene to eject a player for a flagrant football or non-football act not spotted by the on-field officials.
The NFL is slated to give teams an update on competition committee and officiating matters during Wednesday afternoon’s special league meeting in Atlanta, at which the owners are expected to ratify the $9.612 billion sale of the Seahawks.
The focus on sportsmanship as a point of emphasis for the officials is not new this season. The NFL said last August that it would be a point of emphasis in 2025.
“It’s just one of those areas that the league wants to work actively on,” Walt Anderson, the NFL’s officiating rules analyst, said then during a video news conference. “There are plenty of ways for players to be able to celebrate. And they come up with some very unique and often entertaining ways. So we want them to focus on those and not the inappropriate areas.”
Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, addressed the issue in a video sent to teams ahead of last season.
“The sportsmanship is a point of emphasis and clarification for the players and the clubs this year,” Anderson said last August. “I know Troy addressed this in the annual video that all of the clubs see during training camp from the standpoint of our taunting was up [in 2024]…. Unsportsmanlike gestures, whether they were either simulating either shooting a gun or brandishing of a gun or inappropriate gestures like a throat-slash or unfortunate sexual gestures that were made, those were up almost 133 percent.… The officials have made it a point of emphasis to all of the clubs.”
The NFL once was derided by some as the “No Fun League” for cracking down on player celebrations. It has attempted to strike a balance between allowing players to celebrate but issuing 15-yard penalties for demonstrations aimed at opponents or containing violent or offensive gestures.
“At this level of competition emotions will run high, but no amount of emotion should give way to demeaning and offensive words, taunting, or other non-football acts,” the league wrote in a memo to teams just ahead of the playoffs to conclude the 2024 season. “No one wants a penalty, or a player ejection, to determine the outcome of a game.”
