Tackling football

I thought that if I were ever going to talk about a professional sports league in this column, it would have been Major League Baseball. Between the owners who started pricing the average family out of the ballpark to pay the players, the players who keep demanding higher and higher salaries that price the some above-average families out of the ballpark and Bud Selig, who has been busy keeping Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame, botching the All-Star game and trying to eliminate the Minnesota Twins this past off-season, you would think that there would be a commentary in there somewhere.

However, the players and the owners came up with a labor agreement, not a good one, but nonetheless, an agreement. The playoffs went well (with three “small market” teams making it out of eight), and the World Series was a great one. So despite themselves, the commissioner, owners, and players of the MLB managed not to completely screw up the season. (Although why there should be more daytime playoff games is something I think is a good idea, that is, if they want more kids to be able to watch the game, become baseball fans, so they can suck their wallets dry in fifteen years.)

Nope, the league I’m writing about is the National Football League, derisively (but not completely unfairly) called by some the No Fun League. The NFL and Paul Tagliabue seem recently to have taken a few pages out of Bud Selig’s book of how not to run a major sports league, and have even added a few of their own.

Between the first and second weeks of the season, the great Johnny Unitas died of a heart attack. Despite the fact Johnny Unitas never played for the Baltimore Ravens (aka, the team Art Modell ripped out of Cleveland, not to be confused with the current Cleveland Browns), Unitas adopted them as his team, and the Ravens were allowed to have a ceremony in his honor.

Earlier in the year, Unitas named Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts (aka, the team Robert Irsay snuck out of Baltimore during the middle of the night and the team Unitas actually did play for, not to be confused with the Baltimore Ravens) as one of the quarterbacks he enjoyed watching, a comment that Manning appreciated. After the death of Unitas, Manning wanted to wear black high-top cleats similar to the ones Unitas wore in his memory. However, since the NFL had determined that only the Ravens could honor Unitas, Manning was denied his request, with a threat of a $25,000 fine if he did (for breaking the uniform code).

Speaking of the NFL fashion police, about three weeks ago Terrell Owens of the San Francisco 49ers was fined $7,500 for having his uniform untucked during the game against the Seattle Seahawks. Nevermind that wide receivers and running backs routinely have their uniforms pulled out by defensive players trying to tackle them, or the fact this fine is almost never levied. Coincidentally (nudge nudge wink wink), this is the same game where, after Owens scored a touchdown, he took a Sharpie that was taped to his sock, signed the ball, and flipped it to an acquaintance in the crowd. The officials didn’t penalize Owens for unsportsmanlike conduct, nor was he punished in any way by San Francisco. Yet the NFL decided to fine Owens, but for an untucked uniform.

And in something closer to home, Dallas Cowboys cornerback Darren Woodson was fined $75,000 for a “helmet-to-helmet” hit on Seattle receiver Darrell Jackson. While after the hit Jackson did suffer a seizure, slow motion replays show that the hit was not “helmet-to-helmet” like the league report said, or even helmet-led, but rather a shoulder hit, which is perfectly legal. Woodson said he was taught to tackle that way since he started playing football, and even Packers quarterback Brett Favre wondered what else Woodson was supposed to do, given that his job is to make defensive plays.

I don’t understand what conceivable difference it makes if Peyton Manning and some of his Colts teammates chose to wear black cleats, especially given why they wanted to do it. I guess rules are rules and are there for a reason, huh?

And yes, sure, Owens was a jerk, but if the NFL was going to fine him for being a jerk, they should have done it, instead of for something every offensive player who touches the ball will be guilty of at some point during their careers.

But of the three, the Darren Woodson thing is what really bothered me. Here is a man, doing his job the way it’s supposed to be done (trying to keep the receiver from catching the ball, and if he somehow managed that, not to go any further), and seemingly just because of the terrible aftereffects Darrell Jackson suffered, Woodson was fined so heavily. If you watch Woodson at all, you’ll see he is not a dirty player by any stretch, but he does give some vicious hits. (You know, the kind the NFL markets in their outtake videos and licensed video games.)

I can understand trying to protect players from injury, and I can understand wanting to eliminate dirty play, but, come on, it’s football! It’s a violent game by nature, and every player knows (or should know) that when he steps out on the field, there is going to be some risk of serious injury, no matter what. And because the NFL is hiding behind the idiocy of fining a man for a legal hit because they want to protect the players, no player will know if they could be fined or if they should have been fined in the first place. Fear of fines means less aggressive play. Less aggressive play means worse defenses. Worse defenses mean worse games. Given Tagliabue’s new crusade against violence in the NFL(?!), it might get to a point where all they are doing is playing two-hand touch.

Can I have more Aussie rules and rugby?