Thursday night’s game between the Commanders and the Giants introduced a new wrinkle to the legend of Jameis Winston.
While attempting to get the Washington defense to jump offside on a fourth-and-one play in the fourth quarter, Jameis capped his pre-snap call with, “Who let the dogs out?”
He capped it with four barks.
The move invited curiosity as to whether Jameis was simply being Jameis and seizing on the moment, or whether coach John Harbaugh knew that the homage to the Baha Men was part of the plan.
“Yeah, I knew that,” Harbaugh told reporters. “That was part of the cadence, yeah. That’s part of the cadence. You know, teams do jump in those situations sometimes. So that was the idea.”
He’s right. It seems like at least once a week a defense jumps when it knows it shouldn’t. And it doesn’t take much to spark the desired reaction.
Last night, it’s possible that the specific cadence could have prompted one of the defenders to start laughing loud enough to tumble forward in his stance.
Regardless, it was fun. And that’s when football is at its best — when it’s fun.