It’s a Tacky Time for the NFL

The Baltimore Ravens have to wonder what on Earth awaits them when they meet the Raiders in the AFC Championship game this weekend in Oakland. The Ravens, it seems, are the NFL’s guinea pig for bad sportsmanship. If you’ve got an insult, a dirty trick or a bush-league gimmick, pull it on the Ravens.

When Baltimore came to Washington, the Redskins’ public address announcer told the crowd, “Ravens fans suck.” Of course, he’s also now the Redskins’ former public address announcer, and the league reprimanded the Redskins. But the seed of sabotage, apparently, was planted.

When the Ravens took the field last week in Tennessee, who should they see on the Adelphia Stadium message board but their own coach, Brian Billick. The Titans had spliced together a tape of the most incendiary quotes that Billick had unleashed to his team in speeches during the season. Did they get the “Mission: Impossible” team to infiltrate the NFL films library? (“Mr. Phelps, your assignment, should you chose to accept it, is to talk in a ridiculously deep and pompous voice.”)

Both teams watched a Billick tirade, mocking a Sports Illustrated story that called the Titans the best team in the NFL. “Totally classless,” fumed Billick after his Ravens had won anyway. “I went up and down the sideline and told the players, ‘I’ve put it out there. You’ve got to back me up now.”’

So, on to Oakland, home of more loonies in pirate costumes and space alien outfits than perhaps any team in American sports. Yes, Oakland is a special place. Especially the Raider end zone. Recently, a TV camera panned this silver-and-black asylum, each denizen trying to outdo the next as a potential cover boy for Psychopath Today. The TV analyst said, with a straight face, that he’d visited those very seats earlier and the first wildly dressed fan he’d met “was actually a lawyer.” OK, maybe. But was this lawyer in charge of getting everybody else in the section back to Alcatraz by sundown?

The official behavior of franchises such as the Titans and, to a lesser degree, the Redskins, seems to reflect a general lowering of standards in the NFL.

Now stop that laughing. Granted, a penchant for ultra-violence is, at some positions, tantamount to talent. That’s why “standards of behavior” and of sportsmanship are far more important in the NFL than any other major sport. Whatever those standards are, for teams or individuals, they’re going to get pushed to the limit. When the limits are vague, they’re going to get pushed over the cliff.

Exhibit A was last week’s Ravens-Titans game. Before their visit to Tennessee, the Ravens trash-talked all week. They may have the best defense in NFL history. Do they have the biggest mouths, too? One Raven called the Titans “just a bunch of hype.” Another bragged that Ray Lewis had made Titan star Eddie George “curl up like a baby” with a big hit. Billick tacitly endorsed the tone. “They’ve pulled me over to the dark side,” he said.

The Ravens-Titans game that followed was one of the dirtiest I’ve seen since the ‘60s, when spearing, clothes-lining and late hits were commonplace. Sam Huff would have been in heaven. Back then, players like Dick (Night Train) Lane, Dick Butkus and Chris Hanberger were renowned for the fear they inspired with blows that were borderline legal or, sometimes, breathtakingly far over the line.

The NFL’s highest wish is to appeal to the public mores of the moment. At the moment, however, pro football may be a little behind the curve. Pro wrestling and the XFL pander to the lowest common denominator among those citizens who, at the moment, are not actually incarcerated. But the rest of society has actually started to aim a little higher lately.

Popular taste creeps into sports slowly, with a lag time of a few years. What the culture approves, or at least tolerates, sport incorporates for fun and profit. Unfortunately, just as the public gets sick of a trend that’s gone too far, sports finally decides to adopt it.

For example, Jerry Springer and trailer-park-trash chair-throwing contests aren’t what they used to be. All the other muck mongers are no longer the rage among young cynics. How many more times can you see a cop dragged by a fleeing car on Real TV? There’s even a chance that the despicable “Temptation Island” won’t be a “Survivor.”

But just as the public sours on the trashiest entertainment, the NFL seems to be tending in that direction. The Redskins’ pre-game extravaganzas were an embarrassment all season. The British burned the city with less fuss than the Redskins make introducing their defense. And about those jet fly-overs and parachutists who deliver the football--can we get a grip?

Everything runs in cycles. Some semblance of sportsmanship and semi-civilized behavior may return soon enough, even to pro football. Maybe we’ll miss that bragging, bullying, bombastic “dark side.”

But right now, it sure doesn’t feel that way.