The Buffalo Bills had their emotional ups and downs over in the month of November, to say the least. An inspiring and, it seemed at the time, season-defining 28-21 win against the archrival Kansas City Chiefs kicked off the month on Nov. 2. But that was followed just seven days later by a dispiriting 30-13 loss to the struggling Miami Dolphins.
A week after that, another high point as reigning NFL MVP quarterback Josh Allen threw for three touchdowns and ran for three more in a wild, 44-32 triumph over the NFC South-leading Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This time, the Bills had just four days before the elation came crashing down with a 23-19
Thursday Night Football defeat to the Houston Texans.
So in the middle of their turbulent and taxing stretch, it surely couldn’t hurt if one Bills player tried to have a little fun with a somewhat silly if slightly suggestive touchdown celebration. Could it?
Not according to the NFL.
Johnson’s Fake Hamstring Pull Celebration
In the Week 11 game against visiting Tampa Bay, on a play with just 36 seconds left in the first half, Allen flicked a backfield pass to second-string running back Ty Johnson, a 2019 sixth-round draft pick of the Detroit Lions who has scored only five touchdowns in his seven-year career with three different teams.
This time, however, Johnson took Allen’s pass five yards behind the line of scrimmage, found an opening around the left hash mark, and dashed another 52 yards for his sixth career TD, making the score 21-10 in the Bills’ favor, after the extra point, going into halftime.
That was all just fine. It’s what he did to display his joy in the end zone that the NFL Operations Department frowned upon.
Johnson first grabbed the back of his right leg as if in pain from a hamstring injury. He then lay face down on the turf and twice pounded his right fist on the surface, feigning frustration at the “injury.” But as he pounded his fist, he also raised and pumped his hips twice in a motion that, though Johnson may have been trying to disguise it as his reaction to a pretend hamstring pull, had a sexually suggestive element that could not be missed.
Two Bills Players Fined in Week 11
NFL officials did not miss it. On Saturday, the league announced that it was slapping the 28-year-old Johnson with a fine of $10,777 for what the league’s weekly GameDay Accountability report termed “obscene gestures.”
The officials on the field did not see it that way. Johnson was not flagged on the field for the apparently risqué touchdown celebration.
The NFL bans touchdown celebrations that it deems to simulate or represent “sexual acts.”
The fine was one of two handed out to Bills players. Defensive end Joey Bosa was hit with his second fine in four games, a $17,389 assessment for roughing the passer this time, the eighth fine of Bosa’s nine years in the NFL.
1 Penalty, 2 Fines in 2025
For Johnson, however, the Week 11 fine was only his second in seven seasons — but also his second this season. In the game versus the Chiefs on Nov. 2 he was flagged for a facemask violation and hit with a $10,778 fine, just one dollar more than his fine for “obscene gestures.”
The penalty against Kansas City was Johnson’s first and so far only on-field flag of the season. That means the former Maryland Terrapin has been penalized once and fined twice this year.
