A penalty for spinning the football? NFL's taunting crackdown is no fun

We haven't seen a ton of taunting penalties this NFL season, but the ones we've seen are mystifying.

The Week 2 debacle came in the Houston Texans-Cleveland Browns game. Jordan Akins made a catch and casually spun the football on the ground. We've seen that before. No big deal, to anyone really.

But it's a big deal to the NFL, which for some reason wanted more taunting penalties this season and told officials to crack down on it.

I mean, who thinks this should be penalized? And to think, it was 15 yards.

This is what the NFL thinks is good for the game. Nobody else does. This penalty didn't affect too much in the Texans' 31-21 loss to the Browns. But just wait until a call for spinning the ball or something else innocuous changes who wins a game. The NFL is asking for it to happen at some point.

Tight end Jordan Akins (88) of the Houston Texans got a weird taunting penalty. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
Tight end Jordan Akins (88) of the Houston Texans got a weird taunting penalty. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)