When the game's over, it's over, even if the clock still has a few ticks left. That's the way the NFL usually goes, with the winning team lining up in the "victory formation" and the losing team making a mere show of looking tough. It's one of those "unwritten rules" that you take as gospel as long as you're on the winning side of the ball.
After a humiliating defeat at the hands of the New York Jets, the Pittsburgh Steelers were in no mood for proper etiquette on Sunday afternoon. As the Jets prepared to head to the locker room victorious for the first time since early September, Pittsburgh safety Mike Mitchell got frisky, leaping over the line to try to disrupt quarterback Michael Vick. Unfortunately for him, center Nick Mangold was ready, flipping Mitchell flat on his back.
Jets head coach Rex Ryan, reveling in a win that saved his job for another week, shouted something at the opposing sideline, and we're fairly sure it wasn't "good game":
Afterward, Mangold left no doubt where he stood on the victory formation: "I think it's a dirty play, and uncalled for," he said. "You usually don't expect it, but luckily, I had antennas up."
"I think it was just BS," Jets guard Willie Colon, a former Steeler, said after the game. "I love that team, I was birthed into that organization, but I felt it was uncalled for. I reacted the way I reacted." Colon went after Mitchell, sparking the skirmish between the two teams.
Certainly, the move brought back memories of Greg Schiano, the former Tampa Bay coach who tried to blow up a victory formation in a game against the Giants. That one didn't work so well, either.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.
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