How a French music video inspired St-Juste's go-to celebration originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
In Washington’s Week 5 matchup with the New Orleans Saints, rookie cornerback Benjamin St-Juste found himself matched up with receiver Marquez Callaway on the outside. And after taking the snap and dropping back, Jameis Winston went St-Juste’s way, hoping to connect with Callaway down the left sideline.
St-Juste, though, didn’t allow his matchup to get any separation and ended up batting the pass away with his hand to stop a Saints’ drive. The sequence occurred right in front of Washington’s bench at FedEx Field, and as St-Juste was swarmed, he celebrated, too.
But he didn’t perform the typical finger wag or “that’s incomplete” gesture that defensive backs often resort to. Instead, St-Juste — and hang in there, because this isn’t that easy to describe in writing — formed two fists and then punched his right arm to the left and his left arm to the right (with his right punching above his left) before doing so again with his left arm above his right.
Since you’re probably extremely confused and perhaps considering leaving this website all together, here are a few screen grabs that show the move (in the second one, you can see that Landon Collins joined in as well):
On Wednesday, St-Juste held a small session with a couple of reporters after a Washington practice. Eventually, the celebration versus the Saints came up.
Turns out, it has quite an origin story.
“I saw that when I was younger in a French rap music video,” St-Juste said. “It was a rapper that did that and I just took it.”
St-Juste relayed that the song in the video was called, “Zoo,” and it’s by an artist named Kaaris. The single came out in 2013, and Kaaris absolutely does the, um, motion that St-Juste did a few games ago:
St-Juste explained that he first debuted the dance at the Senior Bowl, and the reception to it was overwhelmingly positive.
“Everybody was like, ‘Yo, that’s crazy, you gotta keep doing that,'” he said. “So I brought it here.”
And just in case you’re wondering what the whole thing is supposed to mean, St-Juste summed it up simply on Wednesday.
“A corner locking down receivers,” St-Juste said. “Hopefully, I can do it a lot more.”
