It’s peak NFL irony.
Do as I say, not as I do.
The league is celebrating the very moments it loves to punish. The latest example? Camryn Bynum and the Minnesota Vikings’ choreographed line dance after a big play — a celebration so perfectly timed it became a social media sensation.
Vikings really hit the Camp Rock celly on the game-winning INT#MINvsSEA pic.twitter.com/aJhpM3wiif
— NFL (@NFL) December 23, 2024
But instead of letting the moment live as a win for creativity and fun, the league is likely to hit them with a fine — just like it did with Jalen Hurts.
Promoting this on social media after giving it a flag lmao https://t.co/2wPpH1Sqef
— Sam Huseby (@SamHuseby) December 23, 2024
That’s because Vikings were penalized for unsportmanslike conduct in the very social media post the NFL was touted. Now the league’s social media coordinator is likely not coordinating in conjunction with the league office who doles out these fines or the rules committee that institutes these very rules.
We get it — different departments, different priorities. But the disconnect comes across as hypocritical at best. And at worst, it highlights just how out of sync the NFL is with the culture it’s trying to sell.
Bynum getting his teammates to do a choreographed dance from Camp Rock is objectively cool! So is the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato commenting on ESPN’s TikTok of said dance about how much they loved to see a blast from the past, as the 26-year-old Bynum paid homage to the 2008 Disney original film.
Incredible.
— Nick Jonas (@nickjonas) December 23, 2024
For a league constantly chasing younger audiences and engagement, punishing players for moments like this only underscores its inability to get out of its own way. If the NFL truly wants to sell itself as the ultimate entertainment product, it might want to stop flagging the fun it promotes.
[NFL]
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.