Chris Johnson should NOT have been penalized, per NFL's VP of Officiating

Chris Johnson is making news for complaining that he was penalized for his religion. He made a "religious display" (kneeling with his hands lifted towards the sky) after an endzone interception (video here). Some are arguing the penalty was anti-religious.

Regardless of your feelings about religion, the penalty was unfair, per the NFL's own rules.

When the penalty happened on Sunday, I thought about this video, where Mike Pereira, the NFL's VP of Officiating, stated that a player should be penalized for a celebration if his knees touch the ground, UNLESS he is doing it to "praise the lord."



Let's save the unsavory religious overtones of Pereira's rule interpretation for another day... if we accept this rule as Pereira explains it, then why was it not applied properly in Chris Johnson's case? (Because the officials have it in for the Raiders!)