When I read the headline on ESPN from Mark Cuban that said the NFL would implode in about 10 years or so, and lose a bunch of it's popularity, I was hoping that he would be talking about this stuff right here. The stuff that takes away from the entertainment factor of the game. Stuff like turning the NFL more and more into the "No Fun League" ... but, if you read the article, you know he was only talking about how the league was getting greedy with it's air time and trying to make it so they have a game every day of the week. Whatever. I would welcome more NFL in my life...but not if it's going to be lame and over-regulated with penalties.
I think Cuban would have made a much better point if he had talked about how taking all the emotion away from the players is going to slowly kill the game and make it way boring to watch, especially when you see something like a huge hit, and you jump up and down hooting and hollering about the play in your living room, but if a player does that same thing on the field, your instant joy turns to frustration at the player who just made the great play!
This guys are playing a game for heck sake, it's SUPPOSED to be fun and played with emotion! So what if little Tommy gets his feelings hurt on the field when someone walks up and asks him if he's a mad bro? You're in the NFL, you're a pro! And you get paid to play a game! You're the best at what you do—if someone shuts you up, it's your job to shut them up on the next play! Excessive things like throwing a ball at someone, or running to mid-field and flaunting it on a teams logo, or pulling out a sharpie, those things are excessive and uncalled for and should be penalized, but a spur of the moment outburst of joy should be totally fair game.
Where they need to take care of this stuff is at the pee-wee, midget, junior high, and high school levels. If you remove it there, the kids are less likely to grow up and do it in the pros. I'm just saying, let the pros be pros and deal with it on the field... don't take away the fun!