In the midst of the Seattle Seahawks' victory against the Los Angeles Rams, cornerback Riq Woolen made a dreadful mistake. The cornerback often has to keep himself from being too celebratory. The odd part is that his issues come when he is too happy.
Woolen, who was playing better in the second half of the season after having a bit of a rough start, especially in Week 1, was covering LA wide receiver Puka Nacua in the third quarter on 3rd-and-12 when quarterback Matthew Stafford threw a pass toward his best receiver.
Woolen made a play on the ball and nearly intercepted it, but at least the cornerback broke up the pass. Great, right? The Rams would have had 4th-and-12 near midfield and surely would have punted down 31-20. The Seahawks were ascending at the best part of the game, and maybe the game wouldn't end up being close.
Ndamukong Suh feels Seattle Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen shouldn't have been flagged for his trash talk
Instead, Woolen decided to needlessly talk trash to the LA sideline for far too long, and he was flagged for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty. The Rams got a first down, and on the next play, Stafford threw a corner pass for a touchdown to Nacua, who was covered poorly by Woolen.
Game on again. But were the referees right to call a penalty on Riq Woolen? Maybe fans and pundits likely thought so. Former player Ndamukong Suh didn't. He said as much while doing some live online commentary for the BBC.
Of course, Suh was the kind of player who some saw as dirty, and he didn't mind spewing some disrespect toward his opponents during the game. He is probably the last person to have a fair opinion of what it means to trash-talk or not. Still, his opinion is a valid one.
Woolen wasn't physically aggressive toward a Rams player or coach. (At the end of the game, the cornerback did immediately go to Rams head coach Sean McVay in an attempt to do...well, who knows? Talk more trash? Potentially. Or maybe he was just being a good sport.
Riq Woolen was basically penalized for the opposite of a child chanting "sticks and stones," at least according to Ndamukong Suh. Words hurt in the NFL, as it turns out, sometimes more than unnecessary roughness.
After all, quarterback Sam Darnold was sacked later in the game by LA's Kam Kinchens, and the safety threw Darnold to the ground at the end. No flag was thrown. Oddly, had Kinchens stood over the quarterback and taunted him, that would have drawn a flag.
Ultimately, what matters is that the Seattle Seahawks are heading to the Super Bowl to play the New England Patriots. Let's hope Riq Woolen plays extremely well, but avoids the taunting it takes to cost his team 15 yards.