NFLs double standard over 49ers fullbacks beer fine leaves bad taste

We’re throwing the flag on the NFL for this one.Unsportsmanlike hypocrisy.And after further review, the ruling stands.The league fined 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk $14,926 for an end zone celebration during San Francisco’s Week 2 win over the Dolphins, determining that his imitation of taking a drink amounted to an offensive demonstration.“Your imitation of chugging a beer constituted an offensive demonstration and could reasonably be construed as being in poor taste,” the league said in its letter.That is quite a position for a league with an official beer sponsor.But before we get to the contradiction, we should probably establish what Juszczyk was actually doing.His nickname is “Juice.” He has performed the celebration for years, explaining that he is simulating drinking juice.He had never previously been fined for it.Understandably, he is appealing.Apparently, someone at league headquarters watched a man nicknamed Juice pretend to take a drink and decided the imaginary beverage contained alcohol.That’s quite the assumption.That alone should be enough to overturn the fine.But the league’s reasoning deserves scrutiny even if we accept its interpretation.Suppose Juszczyk was pretending to chug a beer.The NFL is really going to clutch its pearls over that?This is a league that gladly attaches its name to beer marketing.

Bud Light is its official beer sponsor. Every stadium across the league is plastered with beer advertisements.You can’t watch an NFL game without seeing a beer commercial.The relationship could hardly be more apparent.Pro football has been selling beer almost as long as they’ve been pumping air into the balls and have made billions of dollars in the process. Who is fooling whom here?Yet a fullback supposedly pretends to drink one, and that becomes the line the NFL deems too controversial to cross?Suddenly we need to have a serious discussion about poor taste?The league has drawn a line in the sand that amounts to this: Do as ...