The Nut Shot Heard Round the World

It's hard to be a Viking.

It takes a special kind of guy to kick another guy in the nuts. That’d be like me walking up to a girl and sucker punching her in the chest. It’s just one of those things you don’t do. That is, unless your Brian Robison.

The incident happened after an always touchy play, a field goal. It also happened when the Vikings were still winning the game. I know it’s hard to be winning a game, but never knew it was that difficult.

After the game, Lang joked a little, providing people with an update that all the parts down there were functioning properly. But he also called the move cowardly. Robison responded with this twitter apology:

My apologies to @tjlang70 , my team, my fans and the @nfl . I am not a dirty player and did not maliciously aim for the groin, just happened to be where it landed.

I can appreciate Robison’s apology in that, from everything I’ve heard he is not known for being a dirty player. I also can appreciate that he immediately apologized. I don’t know if his apology is sincere. It doesn’t seem like it to me, but he’s the only one who knows that truth. I do however take issue with one thing in his tweet. “(I) did not maliciously aim for the groin….” Well then, where were you aiming?

This is football. We expect our players to be motivated, passionate and lay hard hits on the opponents. But we also expect them to do so with a completely level head. There is no place for a cleats up kick to another player anywhere in the sport. I don’t care where you were aiming; It's still not cool. But at the same time, football fans have shown to be pretty forgiving. Perhaps it’s because as fans we like our players to be a little passionate. Perhaps it’s because we understand the physical demands of the game.

I don’t know Brian Robison. But I trust that he’s not a dirty player. I don’t think one action makes a dirty player. But I do think he should have been ejected. And I do think his apology would have served him better if he had simply stated that his emotions got the best of him and not that he was aiming somewhere else. We’ll have to wait for the NFL to levy their fine. One can hope though that its more than the $10,000 that Hawk paid for his middle finger demonstration. Until then though, my advice to Robison, stop using your foot for anything. Unless they ask you to do some emergency place kicking action, keep that foot firmly on the ground; don’t aim anywhere.

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Comments (3)

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Mark's picture

October 24, 2011 at 08:06 am

My guess Robison is fined 25k for this but it's good to know TJ accepted his apology.

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Christian's picture

October 26, 2011 at 12:27 pm

Robison should have been ejected, period. That's as blatant as a personal foul can be. What more does it take in this league to get an ejection?
I believe him that it was a "heat of the moment" thing and that he did not want to injure TJ, though.

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Wiscokid's picture

October 27, 2011 at 09:13 am

When I saw the play I thought the same thing. How is that not an immediate ejection?

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