Lions Dance in Packers' Faces With No Flag as Golden's Flex Cost $11,941

TL;DR: The Detroit Lions beat Green Bay 20-17 on Sunday after several Lions players broke into dance emotes following a game-changing offside penalty, with no flag thrown. The NFL then posted a clip of the celebration itself. The contrast fans seized on: Packers receiver Matthew Golden was flagged and fined $11,941 for flexing after a catch against Dallas a week earlier. In the same game, Devonte Wyatt’s late unnecessary-roughness penalty, which knocked a referee to the ground, handed Detroit the first down that led to a touchdown, and Wyatt said afterwards he would do the same thing 100 times over.

The sequence that started it all was, on its own, unremarkable. With the game tied 17-17 at the two-minute warning, Green Bay defensive lineman Karl Brooks jumped offside on third-and-5, handing Detroit a first down it badly needed. Fox analyst Tom Brady had already questioned two penalties earlier in the quarter, Total Pro Sports reports. What turned a routine free play into the weekend’s biggest officiating argument was what the Lions did next, and what the league did after that.

What did the Lions actually do after the offside?

They danced, together, in front of the Packers, and nobody threw a flag. A number of Lions players broke into emotes after Brooks bit on the snap count, Total Pro Sports reports, with social clips comparing the synchronised moves to video-game celebrations. The referees ignored the communal celebration entirely. Then the NFL made the story bigger by posting a 15-second clip of the Lions reacting to the offside call on third-and-5, captioned “Did we miss somebody?”

That post is why this is not just a missed call. The league’s own account celebrated the very moment fans were calling a missed taunting penalty, and the replies wrote the rest of the story. “So we will expect 4-5 taunting fines then? Otherwise, you’re completely full of sh*t with this tone deaf post,” one fan wrote, via Total Pro Sports. Another put the comparison most directly: “The NFL highlighting a bunch of Lions players taunting the Packers while Golden got flagged last week for taunting when all he did was flex after a catch is definitely a choice.”

Why does the Golden fine make this worse for the league?

Because the two incidents are a week apart and point in opposite directions. Golden flexed after a 37-yard reception in the first quarter of Green Bay’s 23-13 win over Dallas on October 18, drew a 15-yard taunting penalty, and was later fined $11,941 for unsportsmanlike conduct, Pro Football Network reports. Golden said afterwards he was flexing toward the Green Bay crowd, not at a Cowboys player, and Packers reporter Ryan Wood reported that explanation, but the league treated the gesture as taunting anyway. The fine landed just before the Lions game, which is why Packers fans were already angry about it when the Lions danced without consequence.

This is the same player whose season has already produced one officiating controversy. Golden was at the centre of the trip attempt that Santos appeared to make after Golden flattened a Bears coach, another incident in which the officials’ response, or lack of it, became the story. The league has now, within a fortnight, fined Golden for a flex and watched his own team’s opponents dance in his team’s faces without a flag. That is the inconsistency fans are actually complaining about, and it is a fair complaint even if the two plays are not identical under the rulebook.

The rule itself leaves room for both outcomes, which is part of the problem. Taunting covers baiting an opponent, and a celebration aimed at your own crowd is treated differently from one aimed at the opposition. Golden’s case turned on that distinction, and the Lions’ case turns on whether dances performed in front of Packers players count as taunting at all. The league has not explained the difference between the two calls, and until it does, the contrast will do the explaining for it.

What happened with Devonte Wyatt’s penalty?

The second flashpoint came later in the same fourth quarter, and it was arguably more consequential than the dances. Packers defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt was flagged for unnecessary roughness on a tackle of Amon-Ra St. Brown that accidentally caused the referee to fall down, Heavy reports. The penalty gave Detroit a first down on the Green Bay 11, and the Lions scored a touchdown from it.

Wyatt’s account and the officials’ account differ on the key fact. The referees said Wyatt continued the play after the whistle had gone. Wyatt told ESPN’s Rob Demovsky he never heard a whistle and was simply ensuring St. Brown was fully down. “What if (St. Brown) would’ve got up and ran for a touchdown? Then everybody would be looking at D-Wy like, ‘You let him go’,” he said, via Heavy. He was unrepentant about the whole thing: “If you asked me right now, I’d do the same thing 100 times over. So that’s the refs. They gotta figure out what they need to do because I definitely did my job.”

The penalty was not the only reason Green Bay lost. Kicker Trey Smack missed two makeable field goals, in the first and fourth quarters, Heavy reports, and the Lions still needed a last-second field goal to win 20-17. But a penalty that puts the ball on the 11 and produces a touchdown is a turning point by any measure, and Wyatt’s public defiance guarantees the league office will look at it again. The NFL’s history with this kind of public criticism is mixed: the league rescinded Kyle Juszczyk’s juice-box fine and allowed drinking celebrations after a backlash, but it has also stood by plenty of fines players called soft. Whether Wyatt himself draws a fine for the hit, or for his comments, is now a live question.

What does this mean for how taunting gets called?

It means the league has a credibility problem it created in two steps. First it fined a player $11,941 for flexing, over his own explanation that he was celebrating toward his own crowd. Then, a week later, it watched a group celebration in front of the opposition go unflagged and posted the clip itself. Fans are not asking for a rule change so much as a consistent standard, and the league has not offered one.

The comparison that will follow this game around is not really about dancing. It is about who gets the benefit of the doubt. Mike Evans checked the name on a rival’s jersey before arguing with him and became a viral moment without a flag defining it. Dre Greenlaw was ejected for headbutting a helmetless opponent and became a disciplinary case. The line between a moment and a punishment is drawn by officials in real time, and on Sunday at Ford Field, that line moved twice in one quarter, both times in Detroit’s favour. That is why Packers fans are angry, and why the league’s next fine list will be read more closely than usual.

What happens next?

The next fine list, and the next explanation. If any Lions player is fined for the dances, the league will have conceded the fans’ point while punishing the behaviour after the fact. If nobody is fined, the Golden fine will stand as the comparison that defines the weekend. Either way, the Wyatt penalty is likely to be reviewed, and the Packers, now 4-3 behind the 4-2 Lions and the 6-0 Vikings, have a grievance that will last longer than one news cycle. The opening-kickoff ejections that opened the Eagles-Jaguars game in London showed how quickly an officiating decision can define a game; the Lions-Packers finish showed how quickly two of them can define a weekend.