I remember when players used to hand the ball to the ref when they scored a touchdown. Like you said, now it is look at me strut around after every play.
Even worse are the stupid, choreographed celebrations. As a Viking was scoring last night, he was already wildly waving his arm for teammates to join him from 20 yards away for a post-score skit. How is this NOT excessive celebration?
I saw parts of a game 3 or 4 years ago. Can’t remember the teams.
The team on offense was behind by 3, 3rd and2 with 2 minutes on the clock.
They tried a pass on 3rd down and QB was sacked for a 2 yard loss.
Two defensive players were about 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage celebrating.
The QB hustled the offense to the line and got the ball snapped before the defensive players stopped celebrating.
Offsides, 5 yard penalty-enough for a first down.
The offense ended up scoring a td with something like 5 seconds on the clock. Game winner.
If the defense hadn’t celebrated and been offsides they may have won the game.
When the celebration craze started up Barry Sims would just hand the ball to the official. He had an “I’ve scored before and I’ll score again” attitude.
I liked that.