The story of the week (Steelers receiver DK Metcalf initiating contact with a fan and getting suspended for two games) continues to generate reactions and opinions. A man who has become well known for some of his opinions chimed in on Wednesday, with an opinion or two of his own.<\/p>\n
And everything he said on the matter is 100-percent accurate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a mindset that you pay for a ticket, you say whatever the hell you want<\/a>,\u201d Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers told reporters from the Pittsburgh locker room. \u201cI think there should be some code of conduct. Obviously, that was intentional, and I think there was some celebration afterwards, on [the fan\u2019s] part. Obviously, [I] don\u2019t condone what DK did, but I understand, you know, there\u2019s been a lot of crazy comments sent my way over the years and, you know, the truth is that that would never happen face-to-face.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodgers is right. I\u2019ve said it for years. Fans who buy a ticket think it\u2019s their birthright to drink as much overpriced beer as they want, and then to say whatever they want, to whoever they want. At every game, including the somewhat neutral Super Bowl. <\/p>\n Rodgers is also right that the things fans say to the players from the stands would never be said to them in a one-on-one setting. One, they think they\u2019re protected from consequences for their words in a stadium. Two, most of them usually aren\u2019t partially or fully inebriated when they\u2019re not at a game. (We\u2019re not suggesting the fan in the Metcalf situation was inebriated to any degree.)<\/p>\n Obviously, there already is a code of conduct. And the league continues to explore<\/a> whether the fan in question violated it. (There has yet to be a single video of the interaction that includes the fan saying anything that sounds remotely inappropriate.)<\/p>\n The right way to handle verbal abuse from fans is to alert security. Metcalf\u2019s version, as pushed by his camp to the media while the league\u2019s disciplinary decision was pending, included a claim that he previously had complained to security in Seattle about the same fan. So Metcalf knows the protocol. For whatever reason, he chose to bypass it in Detroit.<\/p>\n Fan abuse happens everywhere. As one source who has been present in most NFL stadiums recently told PFT, the worst fan he has experienced attends Seattle games and is parked near the visiting team\u2019s tunnel. \u201cThe guy is brutal,\u201d the source said. \u201cVicious and mean.\u201d<\/p>\n The source added that the Oakland Coliseum used to be the worst place for verbal abuse from fans.<\/p>\n So, yes, it\u2019s a universal reality of in-person NFL football. But there are ways to deal with it properly. We saw on Sunday the way to deal with it improperly.<\/p>\n We also saw what happens when the team in question fails to intervene, which continues to be the most overlooked aspect of the entire situation. Either the Steelers don\u2019t have a protocol for keeping players from approaching fans, or they do<\/a> and it failed miserably as to Metcalf.<\/p>\n Look for that to change, as to all teams. Memos surely will be sent by the league, and consequences may be imposed on teams that fail to keep players from doing what Metcalf did. The potential for a very bad outcome (which the league and the Steelers avoided in this case) is real, and the outcome could be much worse than Sunday\u2019s incident.<\/p>\n