The NFL used to be my favorite sports organization. The players were not paid multi-millions of dollars, and in the days before television commercials made the NFL a multi-billion dollar industry. Players played because they loved football. They were paid less than $5000 per season on average, where as today the average salary is $1,169,470 reflecting a 5% increase over 1999, according to NFL Players Association documents.

In the "glory days" of NFL football, the league was known for it's hard hitting, mean "take no prisoners" play every Sunday during the fall. But in "the Days" the viciousness was on the playing field.

Players like Dick Butkus, Leo Nomillini, Gino Marchetti, Sam Huff, Ray Nitske and Alan Page, to name just a few,were known for their devastating and sometimes injurious attack on the quarterback and any running back who they could get their hands on. Butkus for one, fought ferociously on the field, and runners and offensive linemen were constantly amazed by the ferocity of his hits. Butkus could run down ball carriers from sideline-to-sideline, cover receivers out of the backfield and make the right calls for Bears coach George Halas' complicated defense.

Today the vicious play is highlighted by the dog fighting scandal of Michael Vick, and his numerous other NFL friends, who ran a gambling ring based on the killing of dogs in "DogFights".

Then there are the rule changes made by the league that have not only affected the defensive players ability to do their job, but have cut the playing time short to allow for more commercials(revenue for NFL) in the three hour television time slot.

Just a few will be mentioned here. One of the goals in revising the rules was to shorten the length of games. The game clock now starts when the ball hits the kicker's foot on free kicks and kickoffs, and when the referee signals the ball is ready for play on first downs, instead of at the snap. Many coaches believe these changes will eliminate 10-15 plays per game, and most coaches aren't happy about the changes in clock management. The TV people like it because it will keep the games in the allotted commercial TV window.

The defensive player can no longer tackle a running back or receiver by grabbing the back of his shoulder pads, the quarter back can only be tackled from the tip of his chin to his belt line. No grabbing the helmet, no hitting below the waist. And he can be in the grasp, throw the football into the ground, and still get away with out being called for grounding the ball! The league will now let a defensive player legally strip the ball by batting it or punching it. This rule hasn't been enforced, even though there was language prohibiting a player from stripping the ball by punching or batting it in the NFL rules. Many times, the officials are late in their whistle blowing during "gang" tackling to allow such events to occur. Makes for more excitement for the viewers, but also causes more injuries.

Commissioner Goodell has had to disciple too many players for off field actions. The NFL has suspended many players for varying amounts of time. Three incidents stand out. Pacman Jones being suspended for the entire season of 2007, for being involved in 10 incidents with the police, one involving a shooting that left a man paralized outside a Las Vegas night club. Chris Henry was suspended for 8 games by Goodell for being arrested four times in 14 months by police. Ricky Williams sat out an entire year for substance abuse, and these I believe are just the tip of the iceberg that is criminal activity now going on in professional football.

Former NFL players Nate Newton, Leshon Johnson and Tyrone Wheatley as well as Qyntel Woods, a first-round pick of the Portland Trail Blazers in 2002, have all been linked to dog fighting. Both Johnson and Woods were arrested and convicted of staging them. This all happened before the bomb shell was lobbed into the NFL. NFL star Michael Vick was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on charges of sponsoring a dogfighting operation so grisly the losers either died in the pit or sometimes were electrocuted, drowned, hanged or shot.
The Falcon's quarterback and three others were charged with competitive dogfighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting and conducting the enterprise across state lines. Finally on August 24, 2007, Commissioner Goodell sent a letter to Vick suspending him indefinitely.

Then there is the scandal involving the NFL players pension and disability plan. The Courts are filled with suits claiming that the "OLD ERA" players are being denied their duly earned disability benefits.

It doesn't help that some of the biggest names in football history - including Mike Ditka, Gale Sayers, Harry Carson, Sam Huff, Mercury Morris, Jerry Kramer and Sandy Unitas, Johnny U.'s widow - accuse the league and the Players Association of abandoning the very athletes who turned the NFL into a $6-billion-a-year enterprise, the biggest attraction in America's sports-industry.

The former players say the plan is set up to stonewall players debilitated by injuries suffered during their careers. The plan will shop for doctors until it gets an opinion it wants to hear, they charge. Delays are frequent and lengthy. It's often difficult just to get plan administrators to return phone calls. Typical is this comment from former Oakland Raider Dave Pear: "The truth is that the NFL disability process is cruel, evil and deceitful and designed to deny benefits."

In 1986, an arbitrator - using the kind of warped logic that could be called ambiguous at best, decided that Victor Washington(former player for Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers) should get $750 a month for non-football related injuries, instead of the $4,000 he would receive if his problems were football-related. The plan's language, the arbitrator said, specified the higher payment for "a football injury." Since Washington suffered multiple injuries, he was out of luck

More than 60% of retired NFL players suffered at least one concussion during their professional careers, according to the University of North Carolina's Center for the Study of Retired Athletes. Retired NFL players with three or more concussions, the center adds, had a nearly three-fold risk of being diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to Alzheimer's disease. According to former players - Boyd, Bernie Parrish and Morris, in particular, the NFL and the Players Association are taking a stand against claims that could cost them huge amounts of money.

Former Viking Boyd, testified that plan official Miki Yaras-Davis said that his doctors' reports and brain scans would not be considered because "the owners would not open that can of worms" by approving disability for a brain injury. Chris Goetz, a guard who played for the Jets in the early 1990s, told the Daily News one of his doctors, Robert Neviaser, told him the plan doesn't like to pay out a lot of money so it sets its standards unreasonably high.

And if it were not for the following fact, more details on the evolving scandal of the NFL retirement plan probably would be revealed.

Mr. Upshaw( head of the players union) and the NFLPA have hired a "scandal manager" to cover it up for them using their new "Truth Squad." Lanny Davis wrote the book Scandal Management 101 and came up with the line "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," for Bill Clinton and without a stream of NFLPA scandals Lanny doesn't continue collecting his $900 an hour from your NFLPA and Retirement Plan assets.

Gene Upshaw is notorious for having this to say about a ex-player who had the timerity to say something negative about the way the Retirement Fund is managed: "A guy like DeLamielleure says the things he said about me, you think I'm going to invite him to dinner? No. I'm going to break his goddamn neck."

Add this to the scandal sheet. A jury found former Minnesota Viking Moe Williams guilty of disorderly conduct, but cleared him of the other two charges against him for his actions in the infamous sex boat scandal on Lake Minnetonka last October.Williams, 32, charged with indecent conduct, disorderly conduct and lewd or lascivious behavior, stemming from the Oct. 6 cruise chartered from Al and Alma's Restaurant and Cruises, according to WCCO-TV. Williams was found not guilty of indecent conduct and lewd or lascivious behavior.

Earlier in the trial, prosecutors had characterized the party as a "floating orgy".Former Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper was also charged in the incident, but a judge later dropped those charges. Vikings Fred Smoot and Bryant McKinnie have court dates scheduled in May for the same charges.

The Commissioner has fined the New England Patriots and their coach, Bill Belichick, for videotaping the signals of the New York Jets during a game.
Belichick was fined $500,000, while the Patriots were separately fined $250,000 and will likely lose a first-round draft pick in 2008.

The Patriots put microphones on their defensive lineman in order to capture the offensive line calls and quarterback audibles. Then, the audio and the video of the game would be matched up, and defensive players would be given the code at halftime.

If principals of the league's best team engage in an intricate game of cheating, that's as bad as it gets. It doesn't look particularly good for the Champion Patriots, on the video taping front. The Packers, Lions and Bills reportedly observed the team doing the exact same thing, ruling out the possibility that it was some rogue video assistant who was doing this on his own.

Roger Goodell works for management. Of course, it has always been this way, even though the story line is that the commissioner is anything but the collective employee of the 32 owners. I believe his main job is to promote the "money machine" that has become a media entertainment event more than a sport. If you don't believe me, look at the past three Super Bowls.

Consider this, the$23 million in retirement benefits that the NFL annually contributes to the Players Retirement Fund, is only 0.003% of $7.1 billion. Visualizing this, it might be easier; an African Bull elephant weights 7 tons (See $7 billion like 7 tons) the amount the owners provide in retirement benefits to those who built their industry is equal to 9 mice or (4 size 10 ball caps worn sideways) in proportion to that elephant's size. The NFL elephant is $7.1 billion in profit per year.

For these reasons, and too many others that would take up too much time for the reader. I have decided to watch College Football instead of NFL games. The colleges have their problems also, but for the most part the majority of players on the field are in college to get an education that will help them in later life after their playing days. Not many will go on to play on Sunday for the "Big Bucks League".