Slasher Moves

What are the suits at NFL headquarters thinking? That we're happy just watching pro football? That all the fun we need is 22 men crashing around and raising a little dust, and then a pint-sized guy kicking a football? Oooh! Off-tackle! Gain of...no gain! Attn. NFL: Your game ain't that lively.

Let's face it, this is practically the 21st century, and our entertainment requirements have been ratcheted upward. We've had Game Boy and now we have Dreamcast, both of which make pro football look a little oldfangled. Get my drift?

The players do. While league officials debate important stadium-clearing reforms like instant replay ("By god, that touchdown was...no touchdown!"), the players have been developing exaggerated burlesques to keep us in our seats-Busby Berkeley routines in the end zone, wild whirligigs over concussed quarterbacks, congratulatory head-knockings, chest-thumpings and buttslappings—all in the grand tradition of what the NFL calls "excessive celebration." Or in plain English, "fun."

The players' favorite new bit, at least until last week, was the throat slash. This is a magnificent addition to our visual vocabulary. Naturally the NFL hates it. The league announced that it will promptly fine the next guy who shows such provocative and inventive flamboyance.

At least the players understand that their game has long since left the world of sports and entered the big-money realm of entertainment. What they're performing is a kind of national opera, a cartoon kabuki that ought to be encouraged, not slashed. Would Red Grange have drawn his finger across his throat? No. Would 15 million people have tuned in to watch him rumble stoically down-field? Don't bet your $17.6 billion television contract on it.

So let the players, who are a little more in touch with their audience than the league's lords are, handle their own shtick. Let them continue to channel the Three Stooges and caption the action as they see fit. As matters stand, the NFL is about to be eclipsed by professional wrestling as the national pastime. Can it really afford to make it self less lively than it already is? Can it afford to be dead? Attn. NFL: Can you see what I'm doing right now?