Searching for answers about a very different NFL

Bill Belichick's illegal videotaping of an opponent's signs is the latest black eye for a league that has had several scandals this year. AP

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I got a call the other day from a club official who's been around a long, long time. He's the kind of person I would call every now and then to get my head straight, when the crush of NFL affairs became almost too overpowering. He saw things through a wry and caustic eye, especially the hypocrisy not only in the football world, but in big-time sports in general -- even though he was a part of that world. He used to get a special kick out of the way different clubs chose to handle, if that's really the right word, their disciplinary problems.

"If it's some special teamer who gets in trouble, who's busted in a bar or something, then it's, 'We can't have that. We have to make an example of him.' And he's gone," was a favorite proclamation of his.

"But say it's a guy who can really rush the passer. Then you hear, 'Oh, it's just immaturity.' Or maybe, 'He's been hanging out with the wrong people. He deserves another chance.'"

He was a jolly sort, in other words, so it came as a bit of a surprise when everything about this call was deadly serious.

"I've been thinking about what's gone on during the last six months or so," he said. "First, all these studies of concussions. Where have they been until now? Did everyone just turn a blind eye and help create a race of people who went out into the world seriously disabled? Then the Vick thing, the unbelievable cruelty involved, and the idea that some people didn't think it was much worse than hunting or horse racing. Finally the Patriots' video incident.

"What kills me is how everyone took this holier-than-thou attitude, as if no one knew about anything. The Patriots were particularly outrageous, but everyone in the league bends the rules, from stealing signals to something a lot more meaningful, and that is contacting free agents and getting them all wrapped up before the allowable period begins. We all do that. You have to survive competitively. Yes, even the most saintly of coaches and GMs, the ones who command the highest respect, are guilty.

"And do you know what all this means to me, and why it bothers me so much? It means a lack of respect for the game itself. That's one thing many of us always have had, respect for the game."

Maybe he caught me in a bad mood or a downer or something, because the first thing that came into my mind, and which I blurted out without much real thought, was, "What, exactly, is the game? Explain it to me, please. The money, the hype, the trinkets they sell that were made in Bangladesh or someplace? Maybe what takes place on the field, but that's only a part of it. What old timers call, 'The Game,' has been so twisted out of shape for me that I don't even know what it is anymore."

I expected to get blistered, but I wasn't. He just said, "I don't know, either."

Since then the matter has bugged me. What is The Game? I could give it the easy answer and say it is the entire panorama of football, the great tableau, its history, and the way I felt about it when it was pure pleasure and not related to my work. It was sitting in Yankee Stadium as a kid and rooting for the heroes of the old All-America Conference, Marion Motley of the mighty Browns and our own Spec Sanders and Buddy Young on the Yankees, sitting in Kezar as a college student, yelling my head off for the great old 49ers, Frankie Albert and Norm, Big Chief, Standlee and Bruno Banducci and Visco Grgich.

But that's an old man's answer, misty eyed but not really clear. The game isn't just history; it's the panorama, sure, but there are many more parts to it now, and you can't say all of them are comfortable.

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