Where does it stop?

Just two weeks ago, Ravens fans sat agape during the much anticipated matchup between our beloved Ravens and the easy to hate Steelers. Only the reason we were standing with our mouths wide open was not because of what would have been a killer play on the field, but instead because of the ridiculously obvious attempt of Coach Mike Tomlin to interfere with play on the field.

Tomlin was supposedly staring “mesmerized” at the big screen as Jacoby Jones ran the ball down the sideline for a kick return. We all know Jones could’ve, scratch that, would have taken it all the way, we’ve seen him do it plenty of times before, including in the Super Bowl. But this time he wasn’t tackled by a defensive player coming out of nowhere, he was stopped by Tomlin. The Steelers had a 12 man on the field, their head coach. He had his big feet on the field, right in front of Jones. How could you not see where you are standing? For goodness sakes the man has been a coach in the NFL for 12 years! He should have a pretty good awareness of where he is on the sideline.

For one thing, he wasn’t supposed to be in or past the three foot wide white boundary line, and not only did he cause interference with the play, but he forced a referee to run around him. A week earlier, in the same stadium, on the same sideline, Rex Ryan and the New York Jets were penalized during the game for the distribution Ryan caused. Ryan was simply standing in the white space and caused a ref to run around him. The Jets were flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. That seems fair, the coach shouldn’t have been there.

But Tomlin got away with what he did until a few days after the game. Not one ref noticed that Jones had to break stride when he neared Tomlin’s foot on the field? Oh well, I guess when the ref closest to that play has to run behind Tomlin, it is difficult to see anything on the field. Eventually, the NFL fined him $100,000 and the Steelers will lose a pick in the upcoming draft.

And then there was that smile…no not a smile, it was a plain obvious smirk. Tomlin knew exactly what he had done before his face was on the screen and before the entire stadium booed. I just hope he didn’t plan to do something like this prior to the game, though it still doesn’t excuse what he did by any means.

The sad thing is that tactics like this don’t just happen in the NFL; they’ve made their way into the NBA and other professional sports. The coach of the Brooklyn Nets purposely had a player run into him, causing him to spill the drink in his hand and giving his team an unofficial timeout.

Today we are raised to believe winning isn’t everything, but it is a heck of a lot better than losing. A coach does not want to tell his team that they lost by two points because they did not manage their timeouts correctly or their players weren’t fast enough. The kicker with both these examples is the fact that both teams narrowly lost. I hate losing, who doesn’t, but when you win and experience that feeling that your team worked together and fairly won, it’s like being on cloud nine. Having won because you cheated, well it’s honestly worse than losing.

Spilling a drink, attempting to trip a player; how far will coaches go to win?