Certain NFL players resemble.......

[betplom]

Gorillas.

I'm reminded of this whenever I see a 300+ lb NFL'er pound his chest after a play.

Chest pounding is appropriate behavior for a primate.

[smitch124]

Get the same sense when I see them trash luggage...

[RogueScholar]

I think it's fine, personally. I mean, we too are primates, and for all the social trappings we indulge in, we still are primarily driven to eat, sleep and screw like other primates. Football taps into very primal instincts, and it would be silly to expect them to crash into each other at full speed and then get up, shake hands, and go to the sideline to drink from their water bottles with their pinkies raised. That's why they don't let girls play the game.

[Tsoprano]

[betplom]

I think it's fine, personally. I mean, we too are primates, and for all the social trappings we indulge in, we still are primarily driven to eat, sleep and screw like other primates. Football taps into very primal instincts, and it would be silly to expect them to crash into each other at full speed and then get up, shake hands, and go to the sideline to drink from their water bottles with their pinkies raised. That's why they don't let girls play the game.

You make some valid arguments, but I find the behaviour annoying when my team is down by 21 late in the 4th, my defence makes a stop on 3rd & 18 and the celebratory chest pounding starts.

[RogueScholar]

Actually I can even understand that to some extent. As a kid growing up in a small town, I tried my best to play every sport that was around, just for something to do. After all those attempts, I've reached a degree of comfort with the fact that I may be among the very worst athletes on the planet, maybe that ever lived.

And even I have had a few moments, picked last to play 7-man gridiron out in some field, my team losing by more than 30 points, that I was able to get into the backfield and sack the QB.

Of course it has no bearing on the loss, but there is a completely unique exhileration that accompanies performing well in the face of certain defeat. We ask these players to be warriors for 4 hours every week, and those primal displays of energy are part and parcel with the warrior ethos.

I'm much more personally acquainted with losing at sports than winning at them, and I'm more than happy to grant a losing player his moments of "irrational exuberance". Without those, I worry that he may lose his grip on the warrior spirit entirely, and once that happens, we've lost something precious in our current world of modern sports.