Joe Horn was hardly a stranger to the power of the NFL when he was in the league. After all, one of the most indelible memories of the wide receiver’s 12-year career came well after the play itself was over.
Pulling a flip phone out from underneath the goalpost padding and making a call on it remains one of the gold standards for touchdown celebrations. Excessive celebrations were at their apex in the early 2000s, and this one stands out as one of most memorable, but it certainly came at a cost. Horn was fined $30,000 for the maneuver, and it was his seventh unsportsmanlike penalty in the last three years.
Horn was no stranger to the NFL and then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s ire during his career, and Horn has clearly no love for the league or its new commissioner since he last played in 2007. Last year, Horn referred to current commissioner Roger Goodell, who took over for Tagliabue in 2006, as the devil, and he was more than happy to voice his opinion of Goodell in an interview with SI.com in the wake of the recent crackdown on touchdown celebrations.
“Roger Goodell wants to control,” Horn said in a recent phone interview. “Referees think you’re overly celebrating and they throw flags. It’s either going to count against your team or it’s going to count out of your pocket. It’s control man. They want to control. He controls the players.”
“Roger Goodell is like the Vladimir f****** Putin of the NFL,” Horn said. “You quote me on that shit. Roger Goodell is the Vladimir Putin of the NFL when it comes to players. Putin punks every country when he gets ready to. And there’s no rules when it comes to Putin, and Goodell is the same f****** way when it comes to players. He sets all the standards.”
To be fair, Horn does not think Goodell would have him killed for speaking out if given Putin’s level of authority, but the general sentiment remains the same.
“If they read that quote, they would know that he’s not having people killed and none of the players killed,” Horn said. “But as far as dictatorship, as far as making moves to do what he wants, that’s what Putin does.”
[SI.com]
