Roger Goodell and the NFL have seemingly made it their mission to police fun year-round, and it turns out Christmas-time is no exception.
On Thursday, Saints running back Alvin Kamara tweeted a photo of the fine he received for wearing red cleats designed to look like Christmas stockings during New Orleans’ game against the Falcons on Sunday. Players are prohibited from wearing shoes that don’t match their teams’ uniforms.
https://twitter.com/A_kamara6/status/946393809230983168
Kamara told reporters Thursday that he was fined $6,079, per ESPN, and that he planned to raise money to cover the fine and donate any surplus to charity. He also reiterated a joke he made earlier in the week about the NFL being “the Grinch.”
“I told everybody what I was gonna do after the game. I’m gonna make a GoFundMe [fundraising page],” Kamara said. “I’m gonna find like a charity, maybe something that gets shoes for underprivileged kids or maybe something like a little league team out here that needs some cleats and donate the rest of the money to a team or something like that. I mean, the Grinch stole Christmas.”
The NFL has earned its reputation as the No Fun League through exactly this kind of thing. Sure, all leagues regulate players’ uniforms, but it’s not as if anyone was going to confuse Kamara with a Falcons player because his cleats were red. Do athletes really need to be dinged more than $6,000 for finding a creative way to celebrate Christmas?
The NFL has attempted to lighten up on cleats by allowing NFL players to wear cleats for a charitable cause during one week a season. But the league could probably afford to relax just a bit more.
