Following his first career touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings a few weeks ago, rookie running back Le’Veon Bell was told by head coach Mike Tomlin not to do anymore forward flips into the end zone because they didn’t want him to risk getting injured. On Tuesday, Tomlin said during his press conference that he has now told the entire team that somersaults into the end zone are now forbidden after wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders performed his following the long touchdown Sunday in the win over the New York Jets.
“Because its a potential for injury,” said Tomlin when asked for his reasons behind banning the acrobatic celebrations. “It’s silly.”
Silly it was indeed and you can see in the animated gif of Sanders’ flip below just how violently he landed on his back after completing the somersault.
During his weekly interview on SiriusXM NFL Radio following his press conference, Tomlin was again asked to talk about the ban on forward flips after scores.
“It’s not something that you have to anticipate talking about,” said Tomlin. “I think you go into it with the understanding that we need to do everything in our power to maintain our health as much as we can.”
Tomlin later promised that we have seen our last flip this season.
“You wont see anybody in the back and gold doing that moving forward,” he said.
