Reggie Fowler has run into all sorts of controversy since leading a group trying to buy the Vikings. David Sherman/NBAE/Getty Images

Dear Oprah:

Are you an NFL fan? I'm certain most of your zillion-some-odd fans dig it. Women love the NFL. The savagery. The strategy. The tight pants. My wife's a huge pro football fan. A few years ago, in fact, she tried to pull one over on me by giving me DirectTV's NFL Sunday Ticket for Christmas when she really wanted it so she could spend her Sundays watching every NFL game on the schedule.

Have you met Lovie Smith, the Bears' second-year coach? He's your kind of guy. Not in the Stedman-sense, but in the battled-against-all-odds way. Check him out, and check out his team. The Bears aren't Super Bowl contenders yet but they're comers with a hot new rookie named Cedric Benson -- a guy who cut off his dreads simply to make himself more attractive to anyone who wasn't already enticed by his a Flash-fast speed and battering-ram power. You can identify with makeovers, I know.

Why am I asking? One reason: I need you to buy an NFL team.

I need you to write a check. About $200 million and change should get it done. That would have gotten you 30 percent of the Minnesota Vikings, and left you with about $1 billion to play with. More importantly, it would spare Reggie Fowler and the NFL any more embarrassment.

If you haven't heard of Mr. Fowler, he's the brother who was touted in February as potentially the NFL's first African-American owner when he signed a contract to buy the Vikings from long-time owner Red McCombs for $625 million. At a Valentine's Day press conference Fowler held in Minneapolis, cameras flashed and microphones twirled as if the guy had found a cure for cancer. NFL honchos puffed out their chests with pride and black folk across America shouted Hallelujah! -- as if Jesus himself had caught a pass from Donovan McNabb to win the Super Bowl.

Suddenly, Fowler, who before that day was simply a Brother from Planet Obscurity, was thrust into the lineup of black icons somewhere between Jackie Robinson and your fellow billionaire Bob Johnson. Did I mention that it was Black History Month at the time?

I wasn't there that day, but a sense of something amiss seemed to permeate the proceedings. Perhaps "amiss" isn't the right word, but there was something there that made me hold off on tapping the black hotline with the news. Fowler, an Arizona businessman and former NFL aspirant (he attended training camp as a linebacker), looked so painfully uncomfortable sitting before the media throng I actually felt for him. You could see it in his eyes, and in the beads of sweat that made his shaved head glisten. I chalked it up to him being a private man suddenly sitting before a sea of klieg lights for the first time, and not exactly enjoying it. No problem there, but in the next few weeks, stories began to surface questioning Fowler's ability to actually close the transaction. Stories suggesting that the guy who was said to be worth $400 million just didn't have quite enough bank!

Ouch.

Here's the problem, Oprah. Fowler was to become the general partner of the group that came together to buy the Vikings. The NFL requires its majority owners to have a 30 percent equity position. Fowler reportedly couldn't liquidate enough of his assets to produce the requisite funds, and the black history moment that played out on the national stage in February was looking pretty sad.

Last week, McCombs told The Associated Press that Fowler would no longer be the general partner, though he would retain a minority stake. (No joke here, too easy). The lead owner would instead be New Jersey real estate magnate Zyggi Wilf, who had been a passive partner from the start. "Sounds like Ziggi's going to be the biggie," McCombs told the wire service. "That's what they're planning right now."

Reggie Fowler has nothing to be ashamed of. He's still a role model for any NFL player -- he left the game and earned enough All-Pro bucks off the field to buy a team. Or at least part of one, which still deserves to be celebrated.

But you can get Fowler and the NFL off the hook, Oprah. You can make the league puff out its chest again, and erase the ignominy of Fowler putting himself out there and failing to cross the goal line.

Pick up the ball, Oprah. Aren't you ready for some football?

Sincerely,

RSJ