Keyboard Quarterbacks

By Mark La Monica

I kept quiet when the NFL legislated against group end zone parties, effectively spitting on the memory of the Fun Bunch from the 1980s Washington Redskins.

I said nothing when the NFL banned players from wearing non team-oriented bandannas and headwraps under their helmets during games.

I stewed silently each offseason the past few years when the NFL slowly and systematically eliminated personal expression by regulating against end zone celebrations after touchdowns.

No more! It's time to get loud.

According to ESPN, the NFL has fined Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson $5,000 for wearing an "Ocho Cinco" velcro patch on the back of his jersey during warmups of last Sunday's game against the Atlanta Falcons. Excuse me, but wasn't the NFL honoring "Hispanic Heritage Month?"

That's not even the point, though. And yes, the translation of Johnson's jersey number 85 was wrong ("Ocho Cinco" translated means 8, 5, not 85), but again, that's not the point, even though this will probably generate more buzz in the NFL Latino community than any commercial or public relations initiatives the league tried.

This is about the NFL being dumb. We should fine them!

Who did this amusing manuever harm? Didn't it take place before the game? Has all the hard hitting caused the NFL to lose its funny bone? Grow up!

Before we continue, check out what the NFL.com homepage looked like at 11:30 p.m. Thursday.

That's right. Ring the bell of hypocrisy!!!

"Ocho Cinco" -- what are you going to do big bad NFL, fine me for writing it? -- gets fined by the NFL for putting it on his jersey during warmups but it's good enough for the league to use it in a headline to help promote Pro Bowl voting on its Web site?

Wow, talk about your sketchy, double-crossing moves. I haven't seen one that obvious since Hans Gruber blew the roof on the Nakatomi building in "Die Hard."

Questions: Did Ocho Cinco hurt someone? Did he beat his wife while wearing the jersey? Was he doing lines of smack in the tunnel before the game? Is he on the juice?

The NFL is getting so ridiculous in its beliefs of putting out a fan-friendly product, it should be flagged 15 yards for being stupid. Fans don't care about uniform policy violations before the game. They care that their team plays well and wins games.

A football game is entertainment. It's meant for the fans, as the NFL likes to say. Yet they restrict their players from entertaining the fans.

No one player is above the league, but the league is acting like it's above itself. The NFL is a machine in America. It's not going anywhere. Kind of like Rocky in the ring in Russia against Drago. Not with all the money we pour into the NFL, from the television contracts to the advertising dollars to wings we buy at the bar on NFL Sundays. Can you reasonably believe a sponsor would pull its ad because Ocho Cinco wore that on his jersey during friggin' warmups? If that did happen, we'd hear about it and then boycott that company for being woefully inept at estimating our intelligence.

Here's another question: Did "Ocho Cinco" show up in any legal documents referring to the spread of the herpes virus? (Hello, Ron Mexico.)

It's just a matter of time before we see a story saying the shop zone on NFL.com has banned people from buying a "personalized "Ocho Cinco" jersey. (Again, hello, Ron Mexico.)

So grow up, NFL. This isn't Communism. It's fan-friendly entertainment. If we wanted to deal with chivatos, we'd just watch the Omar Suarez scenes in "Scarface."

Hey, maybe the NFL could spend its time preventing steroid use or, at the very least, helping offensive coordinators learn how to call pass plays where all routes go beyond the first-down marker on third down.