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IN NFL'S WORLD, PATRIOTISM REACHED EXPIRATION DATE
September 24, 2004
By Bob Young, The Arizona Republic
Hey, it's nice to know the NFL was so sincere in its tribute to Pat Tillman, the former Cardinals linebacker who was killed in Afghanistan while serving with the elite Army Rangers.
Unless you were somewhere in a spider hole, you know every NFL player wore Tillman's Cardinals No. 40 on his helmet last week.
Broadcasters joined in, with the NFL Today team on CBS, the Fox NFL Sunday team and ESPN's Matchup crew all wearing Tillman lapel pins provided by the Cardinals.
Even Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid was wearing one of the pins during his team's Monday night victory over Minnesota.
It's great when the whole league responds like that, and Tillman's former ASU teammate, San Francisco 49ers linebacker Derek Smith, would like to keep it that way.
Smith wants to continue to honor Tillman by wearing the No. 40 sticker on his helmet all season. Tedy Bruschi, a former University of Arizona star now with the Patriots, also has said he wants to wear it all season.
But the NFL told Smith only the Cardinals are allowed to wear the sticker. If he wears it in a game, he'll be fined $5,000.
"It's not like it's taking away from anything," Smith told the San Jose Mercury News. "It's not taking away from any of Reebok's money. It's not taking away from the NFL uniform at all. It's just paying tribute."
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told the paper that "longstanding policy" prohibits such personal messages.
"He can certainly find other ways to honor Pat Tillman," Aiello said.
This from a league that brings us Sharpies in socks, cellphones in goal post pads and exposed breasts at halftime.
Now, we don't want to suggest that the NFL has uniform Nazis at work, but the league will fine players for having sloppy uniforms or displaying unlicensed logos.
We've seen this kind of stuff before. Major League Baseball made Boston Red Sox pitcher Keith Foulke stop wearing a U.S. flag on his baseball cap, which he had on to honor troops in Iraq.
Look, we're all for keeping the uniforms uniform, especially when it comes to keeping away corporate logos and such. But common sense ought to apply, too.
If it was OK to pay tribute to Tillman last week, what is different this week?