Bob Smizik calls Antonio Brown's backwards run into the end zone against the Redskins on Sunday "classless."
It was showboating. It was taunting. It was disrespecting the game. It was everything people of a certain generation were raised to despise.
It is everything athletes of the current generation love.
I understand this is the 21st century and players adhere to a different standard of behavior. How Joe Greene and Jack Ham behaved has no bearing on the NFL -- and most sports -- in 2012.
Turning this into a generational divide makes me a little uncomfortable, but Smizik is right that athletes shouldn't act this way. (Ick, that's right. I mostly agree with Bob Smizik.) The play, if you haven't seen it, is here. Brown receives a punt, jukes right, heads to his left into a huge hole, then outruns the punter. Then, when he's all alone at around the 20-yard line, he turns around and runs the rest backwards for the rest of the way to the end zone. That was unsportsmanlike, and uncalled for, and it goes well beyond merely celebrating. The play was called back, which evened the karmic balance.