It wouldn’t be the offseason without some drama from the National Football Leauge, better known as the no-fun leauge!
This time, they are striking down on a Dallas Cowboy and his celebration!
The NFL sent out a full 2025 rules report to each team this week and that report included one major update in the section about what constitutes an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
https://twitter.com/_CeeDeeThree/status/1905036309455925508
The NFL has been trying to take violent celebrations out of the game over the past few years, which is a big reason why no one is allowed to celebrate a big play or a touchdown with a throat slash anymore.
This year, the league also added the ‘nose wipe’ to the list of banned celebrations. If you don’t remember, this is CeeDee Lamb’s typical celebration when he makes a big play!
Here’s a look at Rule 12, Section 3, Article 1(d) from the rules report (via Benjamin Solak).
The NFL has previously received push back for banning and/or penalizing certain celebrations, so much so that the league even eased up on some of their stricter celebration policies back in 2017.
This time around, though, the NFL is taking a harsher approach to one of Lamb’s regular celebrations and will be penalizing the move from now on.
Getting Old
Lamb, 25, has had his fair share of celebratory moments during his NFL career, with four Pro Bowl berths and one first-team All-Pro selection to his name in his five seasons.
He’s now caught 100 or more passes in three straight seasons, recorded 1,000 or more receiving yards in four straight campaigns and has 38 career touchdowns.
With all of that, he will need to look for a new way to celebrate. I can’t understand how a simple nose swipe is a violet celebration.
The current over/under on wins for the Dallas Cowboys this season, according to @BetOnline_ag, is 8.5
Their over/under entering last season was 10.
The over/under for the rest of the NFC East in 2025: Eagles 11.5, Commanders 10.5, Giants 5.5
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) March 27, 2025
At some point, it is going to get to where players can’t even go back into the huddle without looking at someone the wrong way. It is getting ridiculous!
Urban Dictionary notes, “The index finger slides horizontally under the nose in the path of the ops and ends with the thumbs down position. This gesture lets your team know you’re out for blood and to scare the ops away.”
I know this really is not important news, but I just think the NFL is doing way to much and taking the fun away from the players who make this leauge great.
You start making them play like they are in church every week, nobody is going to want to watch them!
If you take a look above at the tweet from Lamb, it sounds like he has a handful of other stuff on his mind that he will replace this one with, but man, this was his thing, and we knew when he made a big play he was going to stand up and do it.
I would guess that he will do it one or two times in 2025 and see if he can get away with it without the refs seeing him.
We will probably be seeing a lot of Lambs new stuff this year since he is the only guy on the Cowboys offense that will have a productive year.
They lost Brandin Cooks, they have no running game, and Jake Ferguson is returning from an injury.
Let’s see what they do in the draft coming up here soon and see if they add any first round talent to help Lamb out.
I would still go out and sign Keenan Allen or Tyler Lockett. A veteran that can come in and be a guy other teams at least have to keep an eye on for the time being.
But yet again we are talking about Jerry Jones.