Why don’t we just tell Giants fans there’s no Santa Claus?
They haven’t had much to cheer about in recent years, but Odell Beckham Jr.’s jaw-dropping touchdown catch against the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium stands out as arguably the NFL’s most iconic moment of the 2014 season. It’s something Giants fans can be proud of.
Until Rich McKay tells them that it was the gloves.
McKay, the chairman of the NFL’s competition committee, is the early front-runner for the league’s Killjoy of the Year Award.
He told Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times that it might be time to take a look at the gloves that receivers wear.
These gloves have a “tacky” texture that helps players grip the football, and McKay is concerned that it’s giving receivers too much of an advantage.
Best way to handle this is to pick one star WR, do a $$$ investigation of his gloves, and then suspend him 4 games. https://t.co/qLtcLKm6U4
— Stephanie Stradley (@StephStradley) August 30, 2015
Tim Brown is quoted in Farmer’s article saying that Beckham’s catch would have been impossible without those gloves. Well, OK, Brown is a Hall of Fame receiver. His word on the topic carries some weight.
But this isn’t some cutting-edge thing that the NFL can nip in the bud. This “tackified” glove technology goes back to the 1980s. The cat’s out of the bag.
CHARLOTTE, NC – SEPTEMBER 21: NBC Sports personality Cris Collinsworth during an NBC Sunday Night Football broadcast between the Carolina Panthers abd the Pittsburgh Steelers at Bank of America Stadium on September 21, 2014 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
Former Bengals receiver and “Sunday Night Football” analyst Cris Collinsworth said that if the gloves were taken away, it wouldn’t be the same game.
NFL forces people to consider things like “a catch” from a deep existential perspective
— TXCleaver (@TXCleaver) August 30, 2015
If these gloves give receivers such an advantage, why isn’t every receiver making catches like Beckham did last year?
C’mon, Richie. Jerry Rice used stickum, for crying out loud. Let the receivers wear their gloves.