Looking at Ditka’s charges, somebody figures out that taking excessive blows to the helmet has long term effects on the health of players. The NFL commissions some scientific studies and promises an improved helmet in the future.

In what seemed like a perfect storm of events, last weekend saw a Rutgers player struck down with a paralyzing injury at New Meadowlands Stadium on Saturday, followed by Zack Follett of the Lions getting immobilized the next day on the same field and at least six vicious head-to-head tackles throughout the rest of the league. This put the NFL in a tizzy, to come to a solution of how to deal with this trend.

They fined three players. Referees didn’t even throw flags in three of the hits. Steve Sabol worried about his “greatest hits” reel at NFL films. ESPN was concerned about its regular film segment using the carnage as entertainment. Defensive coordinators throttled back their macho talk. Players like Ray Lewis, who love to celibrate hits with spastic gyrations and screams, will need to channel that need to say, the dance clubs in Atlanta.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has no shortage of concerns, but this penchant to scramble his player’s brains outweighs his crack-the-whip strictness with off-the-field behaviour and Brett Favre’s member. He’s at a loss as to whether he should recommend suspensions, which former-head-hunter-turned-studio-host, Rodney Harrison said was the only thing that ever got his attention.

Goodell’s problem is fooling with chemistry. He has sports’ most attractive product, which is most attractive because of the controlled violence and unscripted action that fills most every play. To mess with that could be disaster. He’s already helped the NFL become the “no fun league,” would he dare make it the “no force league?”

They have protected the quarterbacks inside the limits of the game. They have given referees subjective judgement on touching receivers. Neither of these developments have done anything to better the game. What’s Goodell going to do if he levels an edict that says you can’t hit guys anymore?

This just in from the planet of common sense…how about suspending defensive players for “sucker punches?” Of all the big hits, four out of five usually have a defensive player lining up an offensive player mostly out of lucky circumstances that position the defender with leverage on an unsuspecting target. Double teams often create these advantages. None of these big hitters are doing anything more than my wife could do with a frying pan.

We all know the offense has an advantage because they can plan where they are going to go. The defense has to react, compensate for any number of variables and its only ploy is intimidation. Go over the middle Mr. Receiver and you are probably going to get hit. Get stacked up at the line of scrimmage and you are probably going to get hit. Allow for gang tackling and you are probably going to feel it.

Think of it like the offense being on solid ground and the defense on roller skates. You’d grab and claw, too. You’d hit guys at the line of scrimmage to slow them them down. What you don’t have to do is line up a defenseless offensive player and make your helmet and body into a missile to throw at him. The most common big hits usually have the ball carrier concentrating on catching or holding onto the ball, or getting an open field read while some third party missile is taking several steps to unload. In lacrosse and hockey that’s a penalty.

Despite the bang-bang nature of football, I’d suggest that nine out of ten defenders who line up a big hit, have the same abilities to pull up as they do to unload. It’s the culture of the game to root for the Lions to eat the gladiators.

And as far as the celebrators, these are football’s equivalent to sucker punchers. There’s just not that much talent that goes into throwing an unexpected punch to someone with their guard down. So fine them AND suspend them when they act out. This isn’t about ruling the force out of football. It’s about getting rid of cheap shots.

We are all in for Derek Jeter. Despite his late season slump and predictions of his demise at 36, Jeter is making a comeback from a bad spell, hitting .311 over his past 45 at bats and leading the Yankees to the playoffs. His contract is up at the end of the year, and there isn’t a scenario in the world that would have him anywhere but starting at short for the Yankees in 2011. Playoff and World Series MVPs tend to be clutch players. Sportscream submits Jeter as postseason hero number 1.

Sportscream is against African American Cowboy (perhaps a precursor to his destination of the future) Randy Moss, the poster child for the mold that gave us Michael Vick and Allen Iverson. Randy will never get it, the way he dresses, the way he speaks out for himself and the way he values his legacy, which is to say way more than any real evaluator who factors in stats, off-the-field pursuits and his hubris-driven personality. We are all about his talent, when he wants to put out, and that one-handed TD catch in the loss to the Jets says it all.

On the other hand, Darrelle Revis reaching for the back of his thigh after being badly beaten is the oldest ploy in the book. Revis said that Moss was “a slouch,” but “The Island” pulls the injury card when he was badly shown up. So we are to believe that the Island was underwater that day because of Revis’ hamstring. You could see this one coming days before the game.

Sportscream is absolutely 100% for the City of Detroit and its teams. As if decay and economic crisis weren’t enough, professional officials chose the Motor City as the victim twice this year to dash fans most obvious means of escape. Umpire Jim Joyce’s call on Armando Galarraga’s perfect game and NFL ref Gene Sterafore and his crew’s call on Calvin Johnson’s winning touchdown against the Bears that wasn’t, are enough to make you turn your back on the games. Not in Detroit. Whatever BS Detroit fans are fed by the leaders of the game (Bud Selig and Roger Goodell), they’ll keep their loyalty to their teams.

The only thing Sportscream can’t figure about the lady “reporter” from Mexico’s TV Azteca visiting the Jet’s sausage fest, we mean, lockerroom, is why doesn’t the NBA try to promote the WNBA by hiring some male eye candy to visit their lady’s lockerrooms? Maybe someone would then pay some attention to the WNBA.

Sportscream is all for Villanova football entering the Big East and against the detractors that characterize the move as “minor.” Villanova coach Andy Talley may be just the agent to guide the transition after winning the FCS championship in 2009. Getting time for games in Lincoln Financial Field should eventually be a no-brainer, despite Temple’s lease. Recruiting more Howie Long’s and Brian Westbrook’s is just a full commitment from the friars that run Nova away. The Wildcats’ biggest challenge is to the alumni to mobilize enough football interest to fill the Linc.

We are for the resurgent Michigan Wolverines led by the remarkable Denard Robinson. This is a case of the virtuists jumping on Rich Rodriguez and not understanding football. Instead of lamenting how Lloyd Carr laid down and left the cupboard bare, game-planned losses to Applachian State and took a little pleasure as players abandoned ship (Ryan Mallet, Justin Boren, et al), the Michigan faithful couldn’t grasp Rich Rod’s system, his abandonment of West Virginia and that horrible NCAA infraction of practicing too much. Now the Wolverines aren’t all the way back, but it’s pretty safe to say even dopey front-running Michigan fans can now get the idea.

Sportscream is for “hits” as still being the most important of baseball stats. With the advent of Bill James and the Sabermathematicians, so many new stats power our analysis. On-base percentage, pitch counts and other nouveau stats are often cited as the hidden keys to understanding baseball today and especially “Moneyball” now starring Brad Pitt. Getting a hit is still the most clear way to measure performance. Ichiro Suzuki’s 200 hits for ten straight years is a most remarkable feat. Look at the top hit guys, it’s a “who’s who” of baseball’s elite. If they want to add a nouveau wrinkle, why not track “well hit balls or quality at bats” like they do “quality starts?”

Sportscream is all about the Washington Capitals first-year defenseman John Carlson as a Calder Award as top rookie candidate (as The Sporting News projects) and being the best NHL player ever from New Jersey. Actually, Carlson is Massachusetts bred, but his mother’s remarriage brought him to the Garden State for most of his teen years. Like all NHL prospects he then journeyed through his high school years playing hockey in Indianapolis and London, Ontario and bouncing through schools before being drafted #27 in the first round of the 2008 draft by the Caps.

Sportscream still has a little lost love for Joe Torre and this week he showed us why. After winning with the Yankees with $200 million payroll teams, Torre flamed out and got his revenge by authoring “The Yankee Years” where he trashed the organization that had concluded that his magic was overrated. He came back for the George Steinbrenner dedication and used the east coast media spotlight to lobby for the Mets job. Joe fancies himself as a likable guy who makes the world light up around him. How long before these true accounts of the “real” Torre come back to bite him?

For the 21st time, the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame held inductions this week at the New York Athletic Club. Among this year’s eight inductees were former Providence coach Joe Mullaney, Madison Square Garden photographer George Kalinsky, former Knick Anthony Mason and Rutgers hero Phil Sellers. It was New York that coined “The City Game” and the roster of nearly 200 inductees reads like a history of the game.

So you play for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats in the Eastern League and you’ve made the playoffs and you travel to Trenton to meet the Yankees AA farm team in a best-of-post-season series you’ve worked hard all season to get to. And when you take the field, who is the Yankees starting pitcher? None other than Andy Pettitte on a rehab assignment. The rule makers who allow this have “a thankless job.”

When most of college football is trying to figure what to do about conference alignments and how to get to a BCS bowl, Notre Dame football is most concerned with its NBC contract which puts it in elite company revenue-wise. Rankings, competitive teams and elite bowl games take second place to the Irish’s ability to be paid by NBC. It’s a thankless job, but some Notre Dame administrators (President, AD, etc.) have to do it. And so when one team has an exclusive contract with a network, which receives a supposed built-in following from every diocese in America, how long will it take for NBC on-air employees like Tom Hammond and Mike Mayock to spread their bias all over the broadcast? It’s a thankless job, being an announcer, but somehow the ND broadcast team, especially Mayock, lost sight of Michigan’s Denard Robinson laying down a historic game (502 total yards) against the not-so-vaunted Irish. Imagine how all those NBC and Notre Dame fatcats would have felt had Hammond and Mayock made a fuss over Michigan and Robinson.

And finally, speaking of thankless, as the NFL opened it season, several sporting events and milestones went overlooked due to the glare of the NFL. The U.S. Open was rained out and moved to Monday where it will compete with working hours and the lead ins to a NFL Monday night double header. Sue Bird hit a jumper with seconds left to lead her team to a 1-0 lead in the WNBA Finals (talk about thankless and viewerless), Tiger Woods got bumped out of the FedEx Cup to hopefully go rest and practice and not be heard of again until the Ryder Cup and Kevin Durrant led the USA to the World Championship, a feat that superstars like Kobe and LeBron could never do. Thank you Kevin and Team USA.

To prevent unfair competition, uncontrolled spending by rich guys and perhaps, the risk of teams going bankrupt, the powers between labor and management in professional sports created caps for spending. In the NHL ($59.4m), NFL ($128m) and the NBA ($58.4m) you have a device called the “salary cap.” In Major League Baseball it’s a “luxury tax” limit ($170m) where teams can exceed the number but have to pay a tax into a pool that is redistributed among the poorer teams.

The NFL allows for 53 players, the NBA 12-15, the NHL 18-20 and MLB allows for 25. Imagine the payrolls if everyone made $20,000,000. So it starts with these fundamentals when considering the ploys of players like Darrelle Revis, the holdout cornerback of the New York Jets, or Ilya Kovalchuk, the federal arbitrator decreed free agent, who was prevented from signing a 17-year, $102 million contract with the New Jersey Devils.

It also helps explain how the Miami Heat could basically get rid of its roster and then sign LeBron James, DeWyane Wade and Chris Bosh in the same week. How Alex Rodriguez can make $25 million a year and rookie quarterback Sam Bradford can make more than Tom Brady, Drew Brees or Peyton Manning, before ever throwing an NFL pass. And it helps to better understand the controversy created by Washington Redskins defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth, when he stayed out of preseason drills and was late to training camp after being signed just last year to a $100 million, 7-year deal with $32 million of it guaranteed in the first 13 months and $9 million more guaranteed over the life of the contract.

It may help you better understand, but as Meryl Streep might say, “It’s Complicated.” You see all of these deals are direct products of standards created within each league’s collective bargaining agreement. The NFL and NBA are on the eve of renegotiating their CBAs, and it boils down to labor wanting more and management wanting to pay less.

They both have their cases. ‘The economy is down,’ say the owners. ‘We are being mistreated and taken advantage of,’ say the players. Hard for the fans to understand when they watch the Yankees on TV and the seats on the screen go for $2500 each.

So the Devils followed the rules, and offered to pay Kovulchuk $102 million for his services. Trouble is, the $102 mil was spread out over 17 years. The deal would have paid $95 mil over ten years ($9.5 annually), but only $550,000 over the last five (which adds up to $97,750,000, so the remaining $4,250,000 must be a signing bonus). The way the Devils worked it, was so $6,000,000 was the salary cap figure for 17 years. Arbitrator Richard Bloch said no. Now, Kovulchuk is free to listen again to the Los Angeles Kings, or Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League. The New Jersey Devils say they will provide another offer. This time more to Mr. Bloch’s liking.

So why can’t logic like Richard Bloch’s prevail in all these disputes? What’s the deal with Revis? He’s got a contract he signed in good faith as a rookie in 2007 ($30 million, over six years with $11 million guaranteed) and he’s taken all the guaranteed money out. Now he’s reduced to playing the next two years for about $1 million a year before his “restricted” year which usually means a new contract. He’s become the best cornerback in the NFL and there’s a guy in Oakland (Nnamdi Asomugha) who’s making $15.155 this year and at least, $16.875 next year (if Oakland elects to keep him). Revis wants to be the highest paid corner and wants a dollar more than Asomugha and one of his mentors is Sean Gilbert who sat out a year from the Redskins in a contract dispute.

The Jets on the other hand are known as tough negotiators. They contend that Asomugha’s contract is an aberration, an Al Davis thumb-your-nose albatross that may factor in Asomugha’s local upbringing and extensive community work. Any way you look at it, shut down corners are a rare commodity. So Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum’s tough stance, like he took last year with Leon Washington, who was an out-of-nowhere star, becomes something of a pride issue. “If I give in to one, I’ll be giving in to all.” But Tannenbaum needs a lesson in common sense. Does he want to win? Does he want Revis to go elsewhere? Does he want to wait for another shutdown guy who you can anchor a defense upon to come along?

There are rumblings of how the Jets have offered $12 to $13 million and posed a deal worth $100 million. But the thing about NFL contracts is the guaranteed money. There’s nothing more one-sided to NFL management than the long-term contract. Play poorly or get hurt and the contract seems to go away. Play well and ask for more, then you’ve got a problem.

Richard Bloch would probably average the top corners other than Asomugha and come up with a number. Revis should work on the guaranteed dough and give up the ego-oriented “I need to be number one” stance. Tannebaum should look at the averages. He has a 25-year old corner, likely to be solid for seven more years. Champ Bailey ($9 million) is 32 and still holding his own. Charles Woodson ($7.5 million) was Defensive player of the Year last season and is 34. At some point, this is a silly dispute and someone should ask, “Can’t we just all get along?”

1. LeBron James can’t get a ball into his hands soon enough. Never has a guy gone from plus to minus quicker.

2. Tiger Woods’ desease could also strike LeBron. Fooling with that part between the ears is all it takes to move your game off-center.

3. SI’s Peter King is a treasure. He’s been off for most of the summer, due to vacation and World Cup coverage. He’s back now that NFL camps are open, overcoming the unexpected loss of his brother Bob, and again willing to provide beer and coffee reviews from his travels. Hold the Boston-bias, Pete and have a great year.

4. Something tells me Lance Armstrong is finally going to be exposed for the unpleasant person he is behind the hero worship. His is multi-million dollar business based on seven wins and overcoming cancer. Something tells me those yellow bands should really be green.

5. Pete Carroll remains in first place in the phony league with the most support behind him. Everything Seattle is coming up roses from those who are following Pete. The best draft…playoff prospects…the best book “at bookstores now”…nicest guy…not his mess back in LA…even WR Mike Williams is going to the Pro Bowl.

6. Brett Favre will play for the Vikings this year.

7. Why do the Cowboys come out each July as the Super Bowl favorite? The Cowboys are the poster boys of hype. Everything is great in Big D. Except maybe the defense, RBs, WRs and Romo.

8. After all the “insider” speculation on why Bill Cowher hasn’t taken a head coaching job in each of the past two seasons, shocking word that his wife Kaye, passed away from skin cancer. Instead of taking time to watch his daughters play basketball, do you think her illness might have been a factor?

9. You gotta know that something’s wrong with the NFL pay scale, when Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees are in their final contract years and will make less than Sam Bradford.

10. SI’s Gary Smith does it again with a great story about Floyd Little’s quest for the NFL Hall of Fame. Little goes into Canton with first balloters, Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice and alongside Dick LeBeau in August. Smith’s story chronicles Little’s snub and the perserverance of a fan, Tom Mackie, who continued to lobby for the Bronco great’s induction.

11. Pete Sampras has been hired to help lift Roger Federer’s game. Here’s hoping Pete can hit and spin lefthanded.

12. Ilya Kovulchuk’s NHL contract with the Devils is a twist on reporter’s spin from every angle but what counts. Is it Gary Bettman taking a stand? Lou Lamariello cheating? A legal challenge to the player’s association? The undoing of about 10 longterm contracts that already exist? No, it means Kovulchuk will play for the Devils and the stupid loopholes will be closed.

Michael Vick is in trouble again. His dog fighting partner, who he’s not supposed to be near, got shot in the leg at 2:00 AM outside the Guadalajara in Virginia Beach, site of Vick’s birthday party. According to Vick, he was long gone before the dogfighter/shooting victim, Quanis Phillips, was felled. According to security tapes he wasn’t. According to one of Vick’s lawyers, Larry Woodward, Vick didn’t shoot him. According to the NFL, Vick isn’t supposed to draw this kind of attention or lie to authorities.

According to accounting 101, Vick has just jepoardized his $3 million dollar paycheck, which he hoped to leverage into multiple years and increase his money to pay back debts stemming from his dog killing days. According to NFL scouts Vick has lost a step and isn’t the elusive ‘wildcat before there were wildcats’ that he once was. According to Vick he’s as great as ever and deserves to start somewhere.

According to public opinion this guy isn’t worth the fuss. Even with Tony Dunghy taking his side as a Christian reclamation project, thousands of felons and lost souls don’t even get a second chance, let alone three. Michael Vick isn’t that good as commander of a huddle in the NFL anymore. What he’s good at is huddling with his confidants and lawyers and figuring out how to get out of jams he habitually gets himself into.

How long will it take the Eagles and the NFL to figure out this guy is a chump, destined to make bad decisions for the rest of his life? Perhaps we need something besides a dog to die?

It’s not like it took Jim Joyce for us to question the role of referees in the outcome of games. The “human element” has been at work longer than anyone can remember. Thursday night’s NBA Final was full of it. A four point game and refs seeing things that aren’t there. Koman Coulibaly /strong> of Mali is the latest, costing the U.S. soccer team two points by disallowing a late goal. So Armando Gallaraga didn’t pitch a perfect game, the Lakers are NBA champs and the U.S. soccer team tied Slovenia. Slo-mo replays show errors in every game. So its not the calls that bother me, its the defense of the bad calls. David Stern and Bud Selig lead the way. When is someone going to realize that people aren’t dumb and telling us the way to see it doesn’t work? President Obama is practicing the same strategy with BP….Sportswriter Mike Lupica is also a children’s book author. He has a popular series of sportsy teen tales that follow the genre of the Chip Hilton series authored by basketball coaching legend Clair Bee. For sports people who have witnessed Lupica’s personal act for over 25 years, the idea of him being a moral influence to teens is kind of weird. Not that Lupica is a felon, but he’s famous for a Napoleonic personality that has buzzed through press boxes, lockerrooms and television studios in a very arrogant and negative way throughout his career. Archrival New York Post printed a list of his media failures after ESPN announced the shuttering of the ESPN Zone bar/restaurant in Times Square where Lupica has taped ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters” for some time. Included on Lupica’s failure list were “The National,” and several versions of “The Mike Lupica Show,” on both radio and TV….Before someone tries to tell me again that the bad thing about a winterized Super Bowl is about the quality of the game itself or the sports media not being able to bask in the sun, think a little. The only real negative factor to the idea of hosting in a northern-based city like New York with an open-air stadium, is to the fans in attendance. Funny how Roger Goodell has all the answers for all of the other factors but exposing his well-to-do “partners” to the elements isn’t something he really cares about. Afterall, Roger will be up in a suite, warm and fuzzy, watching on TV with a toddy in his hand….Tom Watson is 60 and playing in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Announcers are bending over backward with “the tribute to an all-time great” act. Could have something to do with his pairing with Japan and Britain’s young bucks, or that there’s a tribute documentary film out about his late caddy Bruce Edwards. The thing about Watson, is that once-upon-a-time he was a drinker, he was stubborn and obstinate about his positions and he told you, you couldn’t tell him. He had a weird divorce, married a fellow player’s ex-wife shortly after his wife filed, had a long feud with his dad, accused Gary Player of cheating, rebuffed fellow Ryder Cup captain Sam Torrance and is the guy responsible for Gary McCord not working The Masters, and this is the guy who comes out critical of Tiger Woods? Today, you couldn’t find a more decent guy than Tom Watson, but this thing about bowing down to the game’s royalty at Bay Hill, Muirfield Village and now at Pebble, is a bit too much. It’s good to pay homage to your greats, but the golfing media has never gotten it. There always seems to be a bit of an edge of resentment from the old guys toward the new guys and the platitudes the media weaves into its coverage irritates the point….While I’m at it, aren’t the greens at Pebble Beach looking a bit blotchy? Kick aside the criticism from players after round one about the poa annua greens being bumpy and over-rolled. There’s something strange going on that is making the “greens” look more like “browns and greens,” and there hasn’t been a word said about it….While Rutgers sits in a bit of a catbird’s seat telling everyone how great the Big East is and how happy they are to be there, they quietly realize that they are a quality possibility for the Big Ten and any other conference trying to compete with the “conference power struggle” that may go on for months. Meanwhile, Rutgers is the only major football team in the world’s largest media market, it has an impeccable academic reputation dating back to an alleged invitation to be an Ivy League member, they are a nationally accredited research institution and is a state school that factors into business, law, engineering, research and agricultural significance for the state of New Jersey. They are also the nation’s best at graduating and keeping their athlete’s on a progressive rate of retaining passing grades. Rutgers finished with a record score of 992 out of 1,000 to top the Academic Progress Rate rankings ahead of national academy Air Force (988) and three private schools, Rice (987) Northwestern (986, take that, Wilbon!) and Duke (983)….Greg Schiano deserves a lot of credit for Rutgers’ progress, not only as a football team but as a destination college. 2010 lines up the Scarlet Knights as a team outside the pre-season Top 25. The string of five straight bowl games should not be broken this season, but this team has some markings to make an impression this season and bode well for Rutgers’ courtship by others and Schiano’s coaching prospects. Sophomore QB Tom Savage is not being mentioned with the nation’s best so far but he has a chance to become a name. Sophomore WR/RB Mohammad Sanu will likely be the Knights next NFL darling and freshmen DB Rashad Knight and WR Brandon Coleman could follow Savage and Sanu as first year wonders to go with solid returnees in every area except offensive line where 49ers first round Anthony Davis has left as well as NFL candidates Kevin Haslam and Ryan Blaszczyk….Let’s take book on who would win head-to-head, Tom Izzo coaching the 2010-11 Michigan State team or Tom Izzo coaching the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers without LeBron James?