METAIRIE, La. ― Marques Colston tried to get up after being tackled and was pushed back down by a San Diego Chargers defensive back.
Upon alighting on his feet, he flipped the ball in the face of Quentin Jammer, the cornerback who needlessly pushed him back down.
Yellow flag. Fifteen-yard penalty. First down at the Saints 32 instead of the 47 with less than a minute and a half to play in the first half.
“I don’t really think I did anything to warrant a 15-yard penalty,” Colston said. “But that’s the refs. They’re just doing their job. It is what it is.”
The move was anti-Colston, against his character.
But penalty not-withstanding, Colston enters his fifth season as humble and quiet as he did in 2006 as a seventh-round draft pick out of Hofstra.
He has three 1,000-yard receiving seasons, scored eight or more touchdowns in three of his four seasons and caught at least 70 passes in three of four seasons.
Though he began the preseason on the PUP list, he came off of it quickly and hasn’t missed a tune-up game in which the starters have played.
“Just hopefully I’m still on the incline,” Colston said. “That’s what I’m out here trying to do every day is to find something to get better at and maintain that level of consistency.”
Still, the 6-foot-4, 225-pound receiver made waves with his reaction to Jammer’s seemingly unsportsmanlike conduct himself.
“I’ve very uncharacteristic for Marques to even say anything,” Saints running back Reggie Bush said. “Their players, they were doing, I don’t want to say dirty, but a little extra after the play. I think in the heat of battle, he just kind of got irritated and had had enough of it. It just kind of came at a time where we can’t have that type of stuff.
“Marques is a smart player and I’m sure you’ll never see that again from him.”
