About Santana's Touchdown Celebration

Santana Moss's fourth quarter touchdown led to the image of the game, seen above. First he whirled his arm at his side, then he pointed the football to the stands and swiveled from side to side. And the meaning?

"What was it?" Antwaan Randle El wondered. "I know he was doing something with his arms. I don't know."

"Like a Gatling gun, huh?" guessed Casey Rabach, which is also what several media members had thought.

("You crazy? I'm not trying to shoot anybody," Moss responded. "I can't shoot in the stands, I can't shoot the fans.")

Which left, what, winding up the hose? Cranking up the stadium blinds? Firing a fast-pitch softball?

"Santana thinks he's a rock star," explained rookie receiver Devin Thomas, and indeed he was right. Moss said today that he was first winding up his "gittar," and then "just partying like a rock star." And the style of rock?

"What you mean what style?" Moss said with disbelief. "Metal. Hard. Heavy. It was electric, but it was heavy metal. You didn't hear it? You didn't hear the stands? They was rocking, and I was rocking with them."

And so, among other things, we learned today that the Moss has been to one rock show in his life. It came about a decade ago while he was in college, when he went on a class assignment to see "some band." We learned that he considered his pyrotechnics in line with Kiss and Guns N' Roses, "when the fireworks are behind you and everything." We learned that his son plays Guitar Hero all the time, and that he tried it once. "I sucked," Moss said.

But when he got into the end zone for a key score after two straight frustrating weeks, the musical impulse took hold, without any previous planning, and suddenly this Moss had turned into a Rose. Way to stay current with the Guns N' Roses and Kiss references, by the way.

"The stands was rocking, [fans] were rocking and I just wanted to rock," Moss said. "I don't know if I've got any more celebrations in me. I'll just throw it to my homeboy," he said, flashing his Sean Taylor 21 gesture, "and keep it going like that."

(Rabach, meantime, was already planning his own end zone celebration.

"Dude, if I ever get a touchdown, I'm for sure getting a 15-yard plus," he said. "I'd try to do the Lambeau Leap, but I don't know if I'll get up there, so that'd look bad. I always wanted to do the beer can slam, just crush it on my head.," he said, mock-opening a beer can and mock slamming it on his skull. "That'd be pretty cool.")

In a related story, Moss has been accusing Devin Thomas of theft.

"He's saying I try to take his swag," Thomas said, "but you know, I'm a rock star too....He knows I've got that kind of swag too, where I like to have fun and celebrate. Hopefully I can get a touchdown and it doesn't get called back so I can celebrate, too....If you see the way I play and see my swag, you can see it. It's like, 'That guy right there, he plays the game like it's supposed to be played.' Just check me out. You'll see it. Look on the field, look at me, you'll see the way I act."

Thomas left, with Moss calling after him that he was stealing his swag. Thomas's locker is right by Ryan Plackemeier's. So I asked the new punter whether he has swag.

"Swag...." Plackemeier said. "I don't know what swag is. No idea. What's swag?"

"Short for swagger," I summarized.

"Gotcha," Plackemeier replied. "I don't think punters are allowed to have swag."

(washingtonpost.com)