The NFL is again the focus of a Tuesday Teasings column, as for the second week in a row, an NFL player cost his team a touchdown by celebrating too early and losing control of the ball before crossing the goal line. Last weekend, it was Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Adonai Mitchell, and this past weekend, it was Arizona Cardinals running back Emari Demercado. It doesn’t get much “stupider” than this, really, eh?

Mind you, these are professional players in name only, not college kids, and both teams lost one-score games as a result of these players’ idiocy. Yet for some reason, it’s news today that Arizona Head Coach Jonathan Gannon apologized to Demercado for chewing him out on the sideline. That RB is lucky he wasn’t given a pink slip right away, in fact, so the fact the coach is apologizing is laughable at its very core.

The Colts are 4-1 and might be the only undefeated team in the league right now if Mitchell hadn’t pulled a high-school maneuver. Sure, Indy’s defense let the Los Angeles Rams score twice in the final minutes to win, 27-20, but surely that would not have been the outcome without Mitchell’s tremendous gaffe. At worst, the Colts could have been in overtime, but more likely, they would be unbeaten right now at 5-0. That hurts.

As for the Cardinals, they lost to a previously winless team (Tennessee) by one point, and yeah, Demercado did a similar thing in terms of celebrating a great play too early. It can be argued that he directly cost his team the game here, and the loss dropped Arizona to 2-3 in a highly competitive NFC West Division that the San Francisco 49ers lead with a 4-1 mark—which includes a last-second victory over the Cards earlier.

We’re pretty positive that every head coach in the league probably talked to their players after the Mitchell blunder, so for Demercado still to miss that memo just defies logic. He should be apologizing to his whole team and begging the front office not to cut him. He’s also a third-year player, whereas Mitchell is in his second season. These guys are not rookies doing the stupid; they’re players who need to play better now.

Otherwise, they don’t get contracts. Demercado is making just over $1M this year on the final season of his rookie deal, and he will be a restricted free agent next year. This kind of blunder costs you big time at negotiation time, literally costing the team a victory. And this is a franchise that has just one postseason appearance in the last decade. We’re willing to bet this loss comes back to haunt the Cardinals in December.

The Colts can manage a bit better with their 4-1 record, of course, but Mitchell is in the second year of an escalating contract that doesn’t expire until after the 2027 season, when he will become an unrestricted free agent. He hasn’t performed well, overall, despite making $4.1M already in his short career. He has just 30 catches now in 22 career games and is due over $3.2M more in base salary through his fourth season.

Why would Indy give him any more money when he’s already been “stealing” from the team, hitherto? Throw in this mistake, and it’s got to be the nail in the coffin for the former Texas Longhorn, who clearly didn’t learn much in college (no surprise there). Either way, at least the Colts handled this issue in a way that is not making the wrong kind of front-page news like it is with the Arizona franchise. Indy needs wins, too.

In fact, the Colts have just two postseason appearances in the last decade, themselves. Neither team can afford these kinds of blunders, and head coaches certainly don’t need to be apologizing to overpaid players for literally coaching professional players who should know a lot better than to commit a teenage-boy error. We suspect Indianapolis will overcome this issue and still make the playoffs, yet the memories will linger.

Yes, we are big fans of the following statement: “[L]eadership … is an essentially moral act, not—as in most management—an essentially protective act. It is the assertion of a vision, not simply the exercise of a style … “, stated by former MLB Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. This sentiment now applies to everyone involved in these silly situations, first and foremost the players themselves: Mitchell and Demercado.