The San Francisco 49ers celebrated their 10th win of the 2011 season on Sunday by shutting out the hapless St. Louis Rams, 26-0. In professional football, sometimes players will get worked up. Sometimes they'll get excited, forget they're supposed to be courteous and good sports, and jump around a little bit too much. When that happens, it's up to the officials to throw a yellow hankie on the field, roll up a copy of The New Yorker (or maybe Us Weekly) and bop said player on the nose.
"No," the official will then say. "Bad." And then a penalty will be assessed or whatever. This is what is known as "excessive celebration." It can happen to the best of us. It's nice to see, however, that the 49ers have a player who refuses to buy into any of this "celebration" business. Not for him. Too emotional.
You see, during the game, 49ers player Dashon Goldson caught an interception. Since an interception is good and exciting, Goldson celebrated. But then -- perhaps you can see what is coming here -- whoops! He celebrated too much, and ended up with a penalty. His teammate Aldon Smith did not care for that one bit. Smith's eyes grew wide, and he clapped his hands to his mouth. He secretly wondered whether Goldson's actions would land him squarely on Santa's "naughty" list. He's heard a lot about that list, you know, and Christmas is only a few weeks away!
So on the subsequent series, Smith recorded his first sack of the game. He wanted to prove to everyone what a good boy he was, so he had a seat and announced he was ready for his vegetables, please.
via i.imgur.com
An alternate look:
Thank goodness that the NFL has someone like Aldon Smith, who can show everyone how to just sit and be still. It teaches kids that they shouldn't get excited at school or at work, and when things go well the best course of action is to be as quiet and inconspicuous as possible, or you'll get yelled at for having a really good time.
Nobody likes a happy person, kids.
Sit on the bench and don't emote along with your fellow San Francisco fans at Niners Nation.