Y’all Get a Time Out: A Toddler Mom’s Guide to the NFL Playoffs

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NFL

A Toddler Mom’s Guide to the NFL Playoffs:

Saturday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers played the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL Wildcard round. Now, I’m an SEC girl through and through, but Nathan is a Terrible Towel wielding, black and yellow wearing Steelers fan. So watch the playoffs we did…

I saw a sign on Etsy once that read: “If you want to act like a turd, go lay in the yard.” Whatever hot mess I witnessed Saturday night made me want to march down to that football field, grab some shoulder pads, and stick some faces in the corner. There were 19 penalties called in those four messy quarters including four unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and three unnecessary roughness penalties. That means seven out of 19 times a flag was thrown, some grown men were acting like over-exhausted toddlers scuffling over the last pack of gummies at snack time for all of the continental U.S. to see.

Men, if you want to play like toddlers, I feel I need to address the following penalties of the game as if I was addressing a stand off between my four- and five-year old sons. (I feel pretty qualified to do so, as I once broke up a fist-fight over a free deli cookie in the meat aisle of Kroger that resulted in two tiny people actually rolling into the ground beef stand and me wishing I was in the meat grinder.)

I am competitive. I fully understand playing with heart, passion, and physicality. However, as grown men, I find it hard to believe that emotions and baggage cannot be checked at the door, er, tunnel. (This isn’t just the players either; there were six, SIX, assault-related arrests in the stands during the matchup. One for a man urinating on a man in front of him. I mean. I can’t even make that up.). The officials can throw that yellow flag all they want, but players? Y’all need a mama down there.  Immediately.

Forget that yellow flag. Y’all get in time out. Here’s how a toddler mom would have dealt with the NFL Playoff:

1. Warm Ups: After week 14’s December game between the Bengals and the Steelers yielded over $140,000 in fines and a whole lot of trash talk from cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones about not stooping to the Steelers’ level (ironic because he would eventually contribute to the demise of his team in the final moments of the 4th quarter with a personal foul penalty that gave the Steelers a 15 yard gain, putting them in prime position to complete the game winning 17 yard field goal, but we will get to that later), head official John Parry and the rest of the NFL Comission decided to create a “no fly zone” by placing coaches and referees at the 50 yard lines, drawing a sort of human red line that no one from the opposing team was allowed to cross. Clearly that worked. Because the ensuing game wasn’t a train wreck. Not. Obviously, all that was needed here was a quick little “pep talk” of sorts to both the quarterbacks. Why the QBs? Well, they are the leaders of their respective teams in a lot of ways and as leaders, need to behave as such. I have used this tactic many times on my own children before a trip to Walmart/Target/the grocery store/any public place and it goes a little like this:

Benjamin Todd Roethlisberger and Raymond Anthony McCarron? Get your booties over here NOW. Listen. No. Benny. I don’t care what AJ just said to you. You need to worry about Ben. Not AJ. You cannot control AJ. Ben, I don’t care how many Superbowls you have been to and AJ I don’t want to hear about what you did at Alabama, y’all are leaders do you hear me? Leaders. That means all these other sweet boys are watching you for how to act. Y’all need to act right, okay? I don’t want mister John coming to me and telling me that he had to throw out those little yellow flags because you aren’t acting right, okay? Thank you babies. You’re sweet, good boys. I’m very proud of you. I want to stay proud after this game is over okay? AND IF YOU ACT OUT, I AM TAKING TV AWAY FOR A WEEK AND I WILL WEAR YOUR TAILS OUT THE SECOND WE GET HOME DO YOU HEAR ME? Okay. Make good choices out there. Love your hearts.

Works at my house. Maybe it would have worked at Paul Brown Stadium. Who knows.

2. Shortly after the game began, Steelers offensive line coach and former TN Titans head coach Mike Munchak received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for pulling Bengals safety Reggie Nelson’s hair after a play caused Nelson to come running across the sidelines. This resulted in a 15 yard loss for the Steelers and me wondering why in the WORLD a grown man, a decorated Pro Football Hall of Famer, and a father of two decided it was fine to PULL SOMEONE’S HAIR. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL HECK? This transgression is all over the news and sports talk shows, and I’m sure he kind of feels dumb, but he needs a little something like this in my opinion:

Michael! Get over here NOW mister. Do we use our hands or our words when we are upset at our friends? I don’t care what Reggie did Michael. You are bigger than him. You are supposed to be showing him how to play nicely. I’m VERY disappointed in you, Michael. Give me your headset and your clipboard. I don’t care if you need it now. You give it to me. MICHAEL YOU CAN GIVE IT TO ME NOW OR I WILL LET YOUR DAD HANDLE IT WHEN HE GETS HOME AND I ASSURE YOU YOUNG MAN YOU’D RATHER ME TAKE IT THAN HIM. Do not shake your head at me. Get in that locker room and think until half time mister. You better get. I mean now.

Seems like a logical application of stripping privileges to me.

3. Fans throwing trash on the field/at players: Sometime during the first half, the officials gave a warning to the fans, imploring them to please not act like wild animals and to maybe stop throwing trash into the end zone. Later, in the 3rd quarter when Steelers quarterback Roethlisberger was carted off the field with a shoulder injury, Bengals fans threw trash at him, some with such accuracy that a water bottle actually hit his foot. (Cut to me making the Robert Downey Jr. eye roll meme face.) I get it. There’s not really a whole lot a small group of officials can do about a rather large group of rowdy drunk people. But, at my house, there’s a pretty concise talk I give my little guys (with great frequency) surrounding where one’s trash gets put. It goes a little like this:

You guys. Really? Where does this water bottle go? Does it go in the floor or does it go in the garbage? I am your mother. I am not your maid. It is not good manners to make me pick up after you. If you are not big enough to throw your trash away nicely, I guess you aren’t big enough to drink out of a big boy water bottle. Give me your water bottle. I’m going to go put its water in a sippy. We can try to be big in a few days and see if we can handle water bottles again. So sorry you don’t like it. We don’t throw our trash on the ground. That’s not sweet boy. That’s litter. Litter is mean boy.

No water bottles for you sweet fans. (And certainly no more “mommy and daddy juice” until you can prove to me you can handle it.)

4. Playing dirty: With 1:43 left in the 3rd quarter, the game just went in all sorts of toddler meltdown directions when Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier hit Bengals running back Giovani Bernard helmet to helmet, leaving Bernard concussed and Nathan saying, “Dude. I think he’s dead. Yeah. He’s not moving. He still hasn’t moved.” Since Bernard technically took two steps before the hit he wasn’t considered “defenseless,” rather, “a runner.” However, shortly after that, everything went in some sort of tantrum meltdown tail spin. Like. Bad. Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict took Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown down, resulting in the following chain of events: Brown was concussed, the Steelers got a 15 yard advance (the first 15 of 30 yards total that would put them in prime position to kick the game winning field goal in the final 22 seconds), and Burfict faces a possible suspension next season. I know that a win would have been the first Bengals play off win in 25 years. That is SO HUGE. But wanting to win is no justifiable cause to play dirty…

Boys. I need you to stop. Stop RIGHT THIS SECOND and come here. Now. No really. I mean NOW you guys. Why in the world do you think it is okay to hurt your friends like that? I don’t care that you want to win, Vontaze. I bet Antonio didn’t really want to go to the emergency room today either. You’re going to need to sit out the rest of the game. DON’T YOU RUN THAT SASSY MOUTH AT ME MISTER. OKAY. THAT’S FINE THEN. WE AREN’T GOING TO PLAY FOOTBALL NEXT YEAR IF YOU CANNOT CONTROL YOUR STINKY ATTITUDE. So sorry. Prove to me that you can play like a big boy and maybe you can go to the draft in 2017. I don’t know. We will just have to see. Now then, Ryan. Come here. I know Mr. John didn’t technically throw a flag at you but what you did was still very mean boy. Go through that tunnel and stand in the corner in the locker room until I can get in there with you. I DON’T CARE IF YOU DIDN’T GET A YELLOW FLAG YOUNG MAN. GET IN THERE AND PUT THAT NOSE IN THE CORNER IMMEDIATELY. RYAN, I DO NOT CARE WHAT PACMAN SAID. IF PACMAN SHOT UP A, er, I mean, IF PACMAN JUMPED OFF A BRIDGE WOULD YOU DO IT TOO? Oh. Okay smart mouth. Get in that locker room now before you’re in the emergency room like poor Antonio.

Emotions run high in competitive athletic events. I get it. I’m the first one on my feet at tee ball asking the umpire where he got that bogus call. But I’ve never lost myself so much that myself or others were in actual physical danger. So boys, you’ve been collectively warned. YOU BETTER STRAIGHTEN UP OR ELSE. I WILL COME IN THERE. AND YOU DON’T WANT ME TO COME IN THERE…

…And you certainly don’t want me to tell your father what happened when he gets home.

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