Patrick Mahomes Fined 14K And How It Will Chill Texas Tech

I hope I can keep this from being a long "Told You So".

Fined!

Let's start here; Patrick Mahomes was fined $14,000 for making "finger guns" which is against the NFL's new rule about violent gestures. I presume that the "slit throat", "hanging" and "boxing fists" would all fall into this category. I'm going to also point out that in this instance, Mahomes made finger guns the way you would as a kid playing cowboy, and not necessarily like the "Guns Up" of Texas Tech. My point then, and especially now, is that he will be very unlikely to use the Guns Up in a game after getting tagged by the N.F.L.

Yes, It's Dumb

Most Texas Tech fans suffer from what is called, "The Curse Of Knowledge". It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's more like a blind spot. It just means that you've seen the Guns Up so many times, you don't equate the gesture with real guns in any way. I guess we could also say that coming from a gun culture and recognizing and respecting firearms, we know that a pointy finger is just a pointy finger.

Value

There would be tremendous value in Mahomes making the Guns Up and the announcers saying something like, "Mahomes with the Guns Up, a sign from his Alma Mater Texas Tech".  That is the kind of free publicity the University couldn't buy. Now that is probably further off the table than it ever was. It may not hurt Texas Tech that they don't get recognized as much, but it certainly would have brought more attention to the school and possibly to recruits.

Back To The Future

Again, I spelled all of this out on October 21st and was immediately called out, presumably by armchair quarterbacks, more than a few of which have some kind of weird ax to grind either with me or the the N.F.L. I guess we have $14,000 in proof that our symbol will not be welcome in the N.F.L. or that it will certainly be on the bubble. As for the fine, I'm sure a lot of you will say that "He can afford it", but just because you can handle a spanking doesn't mean you want one. I guess more importantly it would be worth $14k to Texas Tech to pay Mahomes to make the Guns Up, but I'm sure there's some rule against that, or that repeated violations would mean much higher fines.