Aqib Talib calls eye-poke ‘honest mistake,’ doesn’t know what honest mistake means 
You’ve probably seen Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib’s egregious eye-poke penalty that may have cost Denver an undefeated season. It was remarkably dumb. But you may not have heard his explanation.
That, too, is pretty dumb.
“You guys ever played football? You ever lost, at the end of the game? If you can remember back at how that feels, that’s how I felt. I was just mad, man. It was the heat of the moment.
[…]
“You think I play football to poke people in the eye? It was an honest mistake.”
Well, there are couple of things wrong with that line of thinking, most important of which: The Broncos hadn’t lost the game yet. In fact, the Colts would’ve been facing a third-and-7 from the 13-yard line with just over two minutes remaining had Talib not poked Indianapolis tight end Dwayne Allen in the eye. Considering Denver was only trailing 27-24 at the time and features the NFL’s leader in fourth-quarter comebacks under center, forcing an Indianapolis field goal was of the utmost importance in that spot.
Secondly, an honest mistake literally means doing something unintentionally without malice. Inserting yourself into an argument between Allen and Broncos linebacker Von Miller, and then clearly using two fingers to poke Allen straight in the eyeball, is the exact opposite. That is an intentional act with malice.
You might not be surprised to hear Talib doesn’t exactly see it that way. More via The Denver Post:
“From my angle, I see (Allen) headbutt Von a little bit. I went over to poke his head, and I think my hand slipped and hit his face. He acted like he got in an 18-passenger car wreck. I guess that’s what type of guy he is.”
Yes, I guess Allen is the type of guy to react like getting poked in the eye actually hurts. How strange? You’re also probably not surprised to hear Allen didn’t exactly see it the same way Talib did. Via ESPN:
“You’re taught since little league football to play to the whistle within the boundaries of the game. I just felt like Aqib, who is a heckuva player, Pro Bowl player, a guy of his caliber I look up to, went outside the boundary of game and decided to take a cheap shot.
“Out of nowhere, I saw something and it went into my eye. First time I’ve ever been poked in the eye intentionally when I’m not on the bottom of the pile. Very blurry. My eye is still really sore.”
Even if Talib merely intended to “poke his head” — which is weird, since I wasn’t aware a two-finger poke of one’s head is a thing people do — it was incredibly dumb, because that, too, would’ve warranted an unsportsmanlike penalty and a first-and-goal for the Colts from the 6. That, too, is intentionally malicious.
In the end, Talib’s unsportsmanlike conduct handed the Colts a first-and-goal from the 6. Indy ran the clock down to 28 seconds and benefited from another misguided mistake — this time a holding penalty by Broncos linebacker Danny Trevathan on an Adam Vinatieri field goal attempt. That gave the Colts another first-and-goal from the 2, and Indianapolis quarterback Andrew Luck then kneeled on the 27-24 victory — but not before Talib earned another unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the final seconds.
“I was just clapping my hands. Everybody in the stadium was clapping their hands. I was 10 yards away from the guy, clapping my hands. He didn’t like it. He threw a flag.
“A hard clap. Like there’s something in the rule book for too hard of a clap. A too-hard-of-a-clap flag? That’s the one I got.”
I’m sure that’s all it was. Not even an honest mistake this time around. Just a hard clap. Makes sense.
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Ben Rohrbach is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
