NFL cracks down on finger guns

The folks in the No Fun League’s ivory tower have carved a new entry into the stone tablets: Thou shalt not shoot finger guns.

The league has fined five players for violent gestures in Week 4. Nine violent-gesture fines have been issued to date in the 2024 season.

The case of Jets receiver Allen Lazard underscores the fact that finger guns apparently landed on the radar screen only recently. Lazard has periodically fired over the finger guns before, with no flag, no fine, not even a warning. (We’ve seen the visual evidence.)

We asked the league whether anything has changed, specifically citing Lazard’s longstanding habit of sticking his index finger out and his thumb up, typically after getting a first down.

“Not commenting on a specific player,” a league spokesperson said, “but that’s been a longstanding rule as part of the reference to any violent gesture. It’s also part of the players’ manual.”

The rule that lists the various forms of unsportsmanlike conduct does indeed mention “[a]ny violent gesture.” And, despite the comment above, our position has always been that the league makes the rules and the players follow them. That presumes the league shares the rules with the players.

The problem here is that the rule went from being ignored (as to Lazard and his finger guns) to being strictly enforced — with no apparent evidence that there was a conspicuous admonition to all players that the league has adopted an Eleventh Commandment that further infringes on a player’s God-given privilege to pretend to exercise his Second Amendment rights.