In the fourth quarter of Sunday’s Raiders-Bills game, Oakland lined up to punt on fourth-and-1. Punter Marquette King received the snap, got the kick off and was tripped by a Buffalo player diving in for the block. Penalty flags flew, signaling a Bills penalty and a Raiders first down.
Then, King stood up, grabbed the penalty flag and did a little dance. More penalty flags arrived on the scene, resulting in a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty against Oakland.
This was bad for the Raiders. And it was great for the rest of us.
Marquette King is the best punter ever pic.twitter.com/9Bzwsq89xD
— Steve Noah (@Steve_OS) December 5, 2016
King is in his fourth season as the Raiders’ punter but his first as the NFL’s most fun player. All fall, he has been celebrating strong punts with dances that would impress even Antonio Brown. He has taken a job that usually entails jogging onto the field (sometimes to boos), kicking a ball and then jogging off with your head down and made it thoroughly fun. King has brought the charisma you usually see in quarterbacks and wide receivers and applied it to the most thankless job on the field.
The NFL has lately made a particularly of flagging players for celebrating, and yet here is King, rebelling against The Man, pushing the limits of when celebration is appropriate. With the league committed to cracking down on fun, King is the hero we need.
Hours after Sunday’s game ended, King put a coda on the whole flag-dancing incident, with a truly hilarious tweet.
https://twitter.com/MarquetteKing/status/805600409603559424
Long live Marquette King.
