Battle on to set touchstone for touchdown theatrics

America at Large: The National Football League's coffers swelled by $45,000 (€36,000) this week when Commissioner Paul Tagliabue punished a pair of overzealous wide receivers (along with one accomplice) for a couple of boneheaded, end-zone celebrations in games last Sunday. In keeping with the holiday spirit, the commissioner hit Joe Horn and Chad Johnson where it hurts most - right in the wallet.

And he hasn't even decided what to do about Matt Millen yet.

Like most other sporting organisations, the NFL has long had in place rules which forbid "taunting" and "excessive celebrations", but the prospect of a 15-yard penalty being marched off against their teams hasn't seemed to discourage the exhibitionist element in the sport.

Even if you haven't watched an NFL game all season, this is a problem with which you are no doubt familiar, for it has its parallel on the other side of the Atlantic as well. Anyone who's ever despaired at the sight of a soccer player whipping off his shirt and going into contortions after scoring his team's only goal in a 3-1 loss would no doubt commiserate. In fact, the age of transatlantic, satellite television-fed cross-pollution may have escalated these silly celebrations in both sports on both continents.

This past Sunday night, in a nationally-televised game against the New York Giants, New Orleans wide receiver Joe Horn hauled in the second of what would eventually become four touchdown catches. In what was patently a pre-orchestrated stunt, team-mate Michael Lewis retrieved a mobile phone which had been stashed beneath the protective padding of the goal post and handed it to Horn, who, even as the teams were lining up for the extra point attempt, proceeded to punch in a number and make a phone call, allegedly to his mother.

"It was uncalled for," Saints coach Jim Haslett told a television interviewer at half-time. "We don't do that here."

Horn later lamely explained that it had all been in fun, and that the practical joke had been intended to amuse his children. ("Look, Ma, Daddy's making an ass of himself in front of the whole country!")

Unimpressed by this explanation, Tagliabue fined Horn $30,000 for the exercise, and whacked Lewis an additional $5,000 for his part in the stunt.

The commissioner's action was almost universally applauded, although some felt a suspension might have been in order as well. As far as we can determine, the only voices of dissent came from Horn's agent, Ralph Vitolo ("Fining him is one thing, but to me that's very excessive. This is not a murder case."), and from a New York-area journalist who opined that instead of being penalised, Horn deserved congratulations for having accomplished the unthinkable by making a Giants' game, however momentarily, entertaining.

A few hours before Horn's little moment of levity, the Cincinnati Bengals' Chad Johnson caught a touchdown pass from John Kitna. He then proceeded to retrieve a cardboard placard which had been hidden in a snowdrift and held it up for the television cameras. "DEAR NFL: PLEASE DON'T FINE ME AGAIN," read the sign. (Plainly, Johnson has been through this before.) Late on Tuesday, the same day he whacked Horn and Lewis, Tagliabue fined Johnson $10,000.

The commissioner has yet to act in the matter of Millen, the Detroit Lions president, who before a bevy of witnesses used a homosexual slur to berate Kansas City receiver Johnnie Morton moments after the division-leading Chiefs had walloped Millen's Lions 45-17.

Millen was standing in the tunnel leading from the field as players from both teams moved toward their locker-rooms when he tried to attract the attention of Morton, a Japanese/African American who had caught four passes for 41 yards in the game. Morton, who had been cut by the Lions in the first year of Millen's administration, apparently was in no mood for chit-chat, and ignored Millen's attempts to congratulate him, muttering that the Lions' president might better "kiss my ass".

"You faggot," Millen exploded. "Yeah, you heard me, you faggot!"

"I have gay friends," said the surprised Morton, "and I don't even joke around with them like that."

Matt Millen played 12 seasons as an NFL linebacker, and is the only man in league history to have won four Super Bowl rings with three different teams, and prior to becoming a team executive spent several years as an excellent radio broadcaster and television analyst; but there is some question that he was ever temperamentally suited to become president of anything.

In his playing days with the Raiders, I once saw him use his helmet to bash the skull of New England Patriots general manager Patrick Sullivan following a play-off loss at the Los Angeles Coliseum, and his tenure in Detroit has been marked by controversy. Last year he was fined $200,000 by the league for circumventing the NFL's minority hiring guidelines in his hiring of former 49ers coach Steve Mariucci, and he stirred locker-room dissension in Detroit last year when, in a radio interview, he described one of his players as a "devout coward". A day after the "faggot" outburst, Millen issued a tersely-worded apology.

"I apologise for that and I apologise to anybody that I offended with that remark," said the team president. "It's something that happened out of reaction. It won't happen again and that's it."

With just two weeks to go in the season, Tagliabue may elect to hold any punishment for Millen in abeyance, hoping that the Lions will do the job for him. Under Millen, the team has gone 9-37 and lost 23 consecutive road games. William Clay Ford might well beat the commissioner to the punch.

Meanwhile, wide receivers all around the league are no doubt plotting ways to top Horn's and Johnson's little stunts last weekend, while simultaneously wondering if it would be worth $30,000 to try. Terrell Owens, the 49ers receiver who may have started the whole thing two years ago when, after a touchdown catch, he whipped a Sharpie pen out of his sock and autographed the football on the spot, isn't likely to take this lying down.