Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Mike Mularkey is trying to instill a different culture at EverBank Field. While most have become accustomed to touchdown celebrations and players like Maurice Jones-Drew trying to top their last pre-planned touchdown dance with another, Mularkey has another idea.
For every touchdown the Jaguars score and just hand the ball back to the referee, Mularkey is going to donate $250 to the Ronald McDonald House.
"I did that in Buffalo. It came about when they started giving excessive celebrating fifteen yard penalties. I thought how can I make sure our guys don’t do something ridiculous and do that and create a penalty that will really hurt our football team," Mularkey told reporters on Sunday when asked about the program. "I just thought it’s a classy and professional way of doing things by handing the ball to the official by saying ‘Hey hang onto this. I’ll be back again’. I just thought that if a charity was rewarded every time they did it and now the team is going to match everything that is donated. It’s a win win win.
"Everybody wins. It looks good," Mularkey said. "The Ronald McDonald House wins, we win with no penalties. It’s interesting because the very first touchdown our mascot decided to hug Cecil Shorts and knock the ball out so our mascot donated $250 to the Ronald McDonald House. He apologized and handed over the cash today so that’s $500 that will go towards the Ronald McDonald House. That’s really neat to see."
The team will match the $250 donation as well, making it a total of $500 for each touchdown non-celebration.