The NFL on Tuesday said that Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah was mistakenly penalized by a game official when he knelt to pray after scoring a touchdown on Monday night.
In the fourth quarter of the Chiefs’ 41-14 victory over the New England Patriots, Abdullah, who is a Muslim, intercepted a pass by Tom Brady and returned it 39 yards for a touchdown. After he entered the end zone, Abdullah slid on his knees and bowed forward in prayer with his head touching the turf.
He was given a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.
An NFL spokesman on Tuesday said that Abdullah should not have been penalized.
“Officiating mechanic is not to flag player who goes to ground for religious reasons,” Michael Signora, a league spokesman, said on Twitter.
Players routinely gesticulate and thank God after scoring touchdowns. Most prominently, Tim Tebow, the former Denver Broncos quarterback, knelt on one knee after scoring.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, had asked the NFL early on Tuesday to clarify its policies “to prevent the appearance of a double standard.”
According to the NFL rule book, “prolonged or excessive celebrations or demonstrations by an individual player” are illegal.
Players are also “prohibited from engaging in any celebrations while on the ground.”
The rule book does not specify what constitutes a celebration. According to the league, though, Victor Cruz doing a short salsa dance in the end zone is not prohibited because he is standing. A player who slides headfirst into the end zone is not penalized either, if it is part of his attempt to score. However, a player who does a back flip in the end zone and lands on the ground could be penalized.
On Monday, the referee penalized Abdullah for falling to his knees in the end zone, but the referee failed to see Abdullah lower his head in prayer.
After the game, Abdullah said that he thought he was penalized for sliding in the end zone. He added that he bowed his head because he was so excited to score a touchdown, the second of his six-year NFL.
“If I got a pick, I’m going to prostrate before God in the end zone,” he said, referring to an interception.
On Tuesday, Abdullah posted a photograph of himself praying in the end zone on his Instagram account.
The penalty did not have any impact on the outcome of the game, the Patriots’ worst loss in nine years. However, it highlighted the NFL’s efforts to tamp down behavior that it considers excessive while preserving some of the emotion of the game.
In 2008, after wide receiver Terrell Owens was penalized for going into a sprinter’s crouch after scoring a touchdown, Mike Pereira, the NFL’s supervisor of officials at the time, said that players had to stay on their feet except if they dropped to their knees to pray because, he said, “I do not want to get struck by lightning.”
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