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The annual "NFL Opening Kickoff" concert is Thursday night before the New England Patriots clash with the visiting Indianapolis Colts, and, frankly, I'm sitting here in slack-jawed shock. After last season's Super Bowl halftime fiasco in which Janet Jackson amply demonstrated to 90 million viewers why TV is called "the boob tube," I fully expected we'd get the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, "Tribute to Sousa" by the Boston Pops (who will be performing on Thursday, by the way), and maybe a little something for the kids -- the New Christy Minstrels reprising their 1963 hit "Green, Green" -- with the whole shebang MC'd by Attorney General Scowlin' John Ashcroft.

After all, the NFL vowed to take full-fisted control of its entertainment extravaganzas after claiming to be blindsided by a libidinous MTV production that gave this nation a mammary it will never forget. But lo and behold, we're actually getting a pretty hep lineup this year, daddy-o: Mary J. Blige, Destiny's Child, Elton John, Toby Keith, and Lenny Kravitz from Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, with Jessica Simpson chirping in from Jacksonville, site of this season's Super Bowl. Of course, there is language in the performers' contracts that prohibits anything unseemly -- smart money says ol' Elton eschews warbling "The Bitch is Back" -- lest the offending artist and his or her management and record label be held legally responsible and dispatched forthwith to Guantanamo Bay.

The NFL will not let itself be embarrassed, especially in the stunning aftermath of Jackson's little wardrobe malfunction. The FCC came down hard: $550,000 fines against 20 CBS-owned TV stations that aired the Super Bowl. Media conglomerates, fearing that their profits or broadcasting licenses may go up in smoke, are now terrified to have their on-air talent say anything stronger than "wee wee." Just turn on the morning drive time radio shows. Howard Stern-wannabes are politely discussing corporal punishment with fully clothed nuns. Never in my lifetime did I ever think I'd see the day.

It occurred to me that the NFL, with all its cultural and financial clout, may be the only institution in this country that could inspire an actual crackdown on gratuitous filth. After all, pro football is America's most popular sport and Super Sunday is its high holy day. The No Fun League has always had a grim, bristleheaded, buttoned-down demeanor, like the school principal who insists that if there is laughter in heaven, it must be officially approved. The league's emphasis has always been on mudcaked gladiators doing glorious battle on the frozen tundra while John Facenda's Voice of Zeus drones in the background. Woe be unto those blasphemers who wear do-rags, gyrate in the end zone, cavort with cell phones. or flash too little (or too much) sock.

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So when you present the world with a stage as monumental as the Super Bowl, MTV's sensibilities are tantamount to a drunken stripper lurching out of the cake at Dad's dinner party for assorted business and community leaders. You just know there will be H-E-two sticks to pay and how.

Personally, I find smutty blather and crotch-grabbing to be offensive, mainly because they have become so mindlessly obligatory. Every radio show, every sitcom, every movie, every singer, has to do something to make the vicar blush. Now, before you light a torch and storm down here to accuse me of being a prig, a prude, a puritanical old fart, let me say that somewhere along the line too many folks in the entertainment industry bought into the notion that intelligence, talent, and originality are not enough and that John and Jane Q. Public are just too darn stoopid to pay attention unless you roll out the double and triple entendres and wiggle-waggle that groove thang every thirty seconds.

I don't see Janet Jackson's exposed feeding station as the end of the world. In fact, I didn't see it all. I was in the kitchen when the offending breast made its appearance. My three young kids remained in the family room, though, and they said nothing when I returned. It's quite possible they didn't even see it, but we'd given them their requisite anatomy lessons, so it was likely no big deal if they had.

Actually, I had been expecting the little buggers to ask why Kid Rock and Justin Timberlake kept grabbing at their Mr. Pee Dee. I had my matter-of-fact reply ready: "They have jock itch. It's a common condition in football stadiums." Yes, sir, nothing inspires the ol' creativity like parenthood. But Thursday night, I shall have nothing to fear from the Opening Kickoff gig. NFL Nanny is on the case.