Your guess as to what happened in the video above is as good as ours. From what we can gather, Rocky the Mountain Lion, the official mascot for the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, was participating in some kind of mascot vs. Pop Warner team game at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. This happened during halftime of Thursday night’s preseason game between the Denver Broncos and the Arizona Cardinals.
You guys, I just saw @AvsBernie make a huge sack! Cc: @Broncos pic.twitter.com/XEH46OLd6a
— Ryan Boulding (@rboulding) September 4, 2015
BREAKING: Rocky has temporarily left the @Nuggets to play football. pic.twitter.com/hjF00G7A2f
— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) September 4, 2015
Rocky was on defense, and some poor child ran towards him. The Nuggets’ mascot absolutely blasted the kid, then stood over him, stared down, and when the young football player got up, Rocky decided to pose like he was about to rip off a crane kick from The Karate Kid.
From a football perspective, this play is illegal for a number of reasons. For one, the young football player stepped out of bounds when Rocky decided to lay the wood, so, at the very least, this should have been called a late hit. Then, he straight-up taunted the kid by standing over him and acting out a martial arts pose from a Ralph Macchio movie, which is easily an unsportsmanlike conduct.
You can probably argue that Rocky should have been tossed from the game and nobody would blame you, mostly because this is an adult in a mascot suit going all Terrell Suggs against a child.
(via SB Nation)
