In competitive sports, tensions rise even amongst teammates.
It reached a dangerous point on Sunday for the San Francisco 49ers as one of their star players, Deebo Samuel, completely lost it on another player on the team.
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And by saying “completely lost it,” I mean reaching the point of choking the dude. Samuel was pissed that the team’s kicker, Jake Moody, had just missed his third field goal of the team which would have equated to nine points.
Samuel went up to him and did some sort of pushing-turned-choking combo on the long snapper, Taybor Peppers, that caught everyone’s attention. This was after a push and verbal altercation with Moody.
“Normally I don’t even get like that, but just frustrated in the heat of battle, a close game and I kind of got out of character a little bit,” Samuel said afterward.
Peppers added after the game that was just protecting Moody following the mistreatment by Samuel, “Jake was having a little rough patch there, so [I was] standing up for Jake.”
If all of this seems outlandish, it is. This isn’t a typical characteristic of the NFL. There are always some sidelined discussions that get heated or shoved here and there, but typically among teammates, and to this level isn’t the norm.
That’s especially true with this particular team. The 49ers are among the best-run organizations in the league with strong leadership at the tippy top of management down to the captains on the field. Stuff like that doesn’t happen with them.
The most ironic thing of all of this? The 49ers freaking won the game… and they won the game because Moody nailed a game-winning field goal. Now the 49ers are 5-4 and just a half-game back in the standings from being in first place in the division.
Sports are legitimately reality television that you just can’t write.
