Too many rules ruin a good thing -- even in the NFL

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I have only seen the previews of ''Leatherheads,'' the upcoming George Clooney movie about pro football in the good old days, the leather helmet days, those days when rules were rough suggestions rather than Senate inquiries.It looks like a whole lot of fun, as the NFL can still be anywhere that Terry Bradshaw is.The league is going to run itself out of business if it is not careful, and careful is exactly the problem.Oh, we don't have to go back to those loony Clooney days when punching and biting and grabbing delicate body parts were part of every play, but somewhere between that and the commissioner of the NFL asking a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania to trust him that the Patriots did not steal a Super Bowl from his beloved Eagles.And, this just in, the commissioner warns of unscheduled searches of locker rooms and even press boxes, not for drugs or for deadline flop sweat, but for Polaroids of the other team's signals.Or maybe it is videotape (is there still such a thing or is it DVDing?) or plays sketched on the back of a napkin, I suppose, any evidence that each team is doing something sinister or underhanded, which is the way I tend to hold my camera.This is designed, using commissioner Roger Goodell's words, to "safeguard the integrity of the sport."Well, I hope Arlen Specter buys this because I don't. Has the NFL established so many rules for its game that it is now down to detention slips for cribbing?The league may let defensive coaches talk to one defensive player by wireless microphone, as they do the quarterback, so coaches do not have to wag in signals. This is supposed to cut down on trying to steal signals when any junior high computer geek can probably tune in and hear it all.Why do coaches talk behind their clipboards? Just in case somebody is reading lips.Here's the point. It is all part of the game. Should the stadium be quiet because the visiting team can't hear itself talk? Never.Should maybe the signal givers assume, as they do, someone is trying to steal their signs and make up phony ones as baseball coaches do? It adds a level of intrigue. Are football players dumber than right fielders? Point guards dribble a basketball up the floor, hold up several fingers and run a play. Nobody has to take secret pictures. All they have to do is remember how many fingers. And there are only five.Are football players dumber than power forwards? Here's another thing. If the league competition committee accepts the commissioner's recommendations this week, at the end of each season teams (owners, GMs, coaches) will have to certify that they have broken no league rules.Oh, sure. That'll work. Anyone who has broken a rule will certainly lie about it. You see that on any play a flag is thrown. The rule breaker is always innocent. And this. Even if a breaking of the rules cannot be proved, the commissioner will be allowed to guess about who is guilty and how guilty he is. Kind of like going through the NFL's version of the airport security screening.You might remember that this all started with the Patriots taping the New York Jets defensive signals, clearly a case of over-preparing, because if the Pats needed help to beat the Jets, they got all they needed from the Jets themselves.Immediately, Goodell leveled fines and penalties and shook his finger and went tsk, tsk, just to show that nether hanky nor panky would be allowed in his administration.In the Clooney preview, there is a segment where Clooney tells what looks like the world's largest blocking back to hit anybody who comes near him. Naturally, the brute cracks the first tackler with a right cross, and the next one with a left. When the official runs up blowing his whistle, he punches him in the face, too."Oh," says the Clooney character, "I like him."Of course he does. We all do. Or the idea of him anyhow. We like to think that football is about strong men beating other strong men. Almost no other rules are necessary.Rules against this. Rules against that. Why is it that there are so few rules for something?Later in the movie preview, a guy in a suit advises Clooney where this is all going. He speaks the three most horrible words the game has ever heard. Professional football has come of age, he says."That means rules."Oh, did it ever.(Contact Bernie Lincicome at lincicomeb@rockymountainnews.com.)(Dave Krieger writes for the Rocky Mountain News at www.rockymountainnews.com.)