What happens when a league begins to take itself to seriously?

They start handing out excessive fines for everything.

Case and point – fining Chad Ochocinco $20,000 for his joking attempt at bribing an official in Sunday’s game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens.

During a critcal sequence in the third quarter, Benagls’ quarterback completed a 15-yard pass to Ochocinco.  The Ravens challenged the play, believing that the receiver was out-of-bounds.  During the replay, Ochocinco held a $1 bill at his side – jokingly bribing the an official.  The official saw this, and gave a motion as if he was waving it off. 

"Child Please" - One of Ocho's most quoted Twitter comments.

The league said he violated a rule which prohibits insulting gestures on the field.  They also say that he was not in line with a rule prohibiting extraneous objects on the playing field which are not part of the football uniforms.  The league also stands firmly behind the fact that Ochocinco used the word “bribe” in his postgame interview.

I guess the sports world is a little uptight with upholding the integrity of the game.  Both the NBA (Tim Donaghy) and major league baseball (performance enhancing drugs) are in the midst of dealing with issues that have threatened the integrity of those respective leagues.

But everyone knows Ochocinco.  And even if they don’t know him, they know that an official is not going to be bribed for a dollar.

The NFL has to take some sort of stand on this…that much I can understand.  But $20,000?

In my opinion, Chad was obviously trying to bribe the wrong people.