Assigning a Value to Cheapest Shots

Buddy Ryan has brought new meaning to the term Thanksgiving bounty.

The coach of the Philadelphia Eagles--the bespectacled guy with the “fat rear end,” to use Dallas Cowboy Coach Jimmy Johnson’s description--put a bounty on the heads of certain Dallas players during the Thanksgiving Day game at Irving, Tex., or so the head Cowpoke claims.

Johnson accused Ryan of offering cash bonuses to certain Eagle players to knock certain Cowboy players out of commission. The principal targets were, allegedly, quarterback Troy Aikman and kicker Luis Zendejas, players not accustomed to defending themselves.

Ryan denied all charges, except the part about his rear end.

This is not the first time the Eagles supposedly have been paid to do bad things to opponents’ bodies. We find it difficult to believe, though, that players would do such a thing to their NFL brothers, particularly considering that:

--Darryl Stingley is still sitting in his wheelchair.

--The amount Ryan was offering, according to Johnson, was as little as $200.

--The spiritual leader of Philadelphia’s squad is the Rev. Reggie White, the NFL’s minister of defense.

Somehow we cannot picture Rev. Reggie condoning such actions. We can’t imagine him leading a prayer in the huddle: “Do unto others . . . and pick up a nice piece of change!”

Johnson produced a film clip of a Philly player trying to turn the Dallas kicker into cream cheese. According to other Texans who have seen this scene, it was the dirtiest thing on film in Dallas since that picture starring Debbie.

Well, now everybody’s wondering about Buddy. Could he possibly be so mean a man? Is it true he wanted some Eagle, any Eagle, to go after Mike Ditka on the sideline when the team played Chicago? Is it true that Buddy Ryan, to borrow an old line by Bob Uecker, is one of those Philadelphia people who is so mean, he’d boo blind children on an Easter Egg hunt?

Ryan says he never set out to hurt a living soul. The fact that one of his over-eager Eagles drew a bead on li’l Looie Zendejas and practically knocked the cuckoo out of the poor guy’s clock, well, gosh, gee-whillikers, Buddy said, that’s just an occupational hazard. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t play football. Play chess. Play piano. Join a commune. Grow organic vegetables.

Buddy, Buddy. Better be tellin’ the truth, Buddy. Anybody from the NFL finds out that you really are putting bounties on opponents, they’re going to be coming after you. Not just with suspensions. With knuckle sandwiches.

Because, as we now know, nobody is safe on a football field, not even the coach.

Jim Burt, a big brute of a San Francisco 49er, came right out last week and said if he’d get the chance in Monday night’s game against the New York Giants, his old team, he would make sure he careened out of bounds in the general direction of Giant Coach Bill Parcells, just so he could bump him into the next area code. Burt hoped to hit Parcells on Monday night and have him wake up Tuesday morning.

Whoa, what a rough sport football is becoming. We knew it wasn’t for wimps. We just didn’t know it would turn into Last Man Standing Wins.

Jimmy Johnson is playing a dangerous game, making accusations against a fellow coach. Buddy Ryan might assign one of his hit men to go after the Cowboy coach, next time the teams meet. Don’t forget, Jimmy doesn’t have any real protection from injury, except for his hair.

NFL binocular carriers are going to be keeping a careful eye on the Philadelphia Eagles from this day forward. If any Eagle so much as pats an opponent on his skinny rear end, he had better do so gently. Any rough stuff, there’s going to be a fistfight.

Oh, and by the way, we strongly recommend that the Philadelphia kicker consider taking karate classes, first chance. Dallas players could be contemplating retaliation. Open warfare on kickers could be just around the bend. Barefoot types such as Mike Lansford and Rich Karlis are particularly vulnerable to getting their tootsies stomped.

The only hitch facing the Dallas Cowboys is that nobody on that particular team has yet shown that he knows how to hit anybody.

One thing about all this violence, we simply cannot believe that players would deliberately try to injure coaches. Imagine pulling some such stunt on George Halas or Tom Landry. Imagine somebody making the mistake of going after Art Shell. Shell would fold his arms and send the guy flying halfway to Irwindale.

Houston’s stadium is known nowadays as the House of Pain. Such a lovely image. New Orleans Coach Jim Mora opened a recent news conference by ripping apart a stuffed referee doll. Such sportsmanlike conduct.

The NFL is a dangerous place. Guess it always was.

From now on, though, injured players no longer will be listed in this newspaper as questionable and doubtful. They’ll be listed as was injured and will be.