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The list is much too long, but among the stars, starting with Ray Rice”€”who infamously knocked out his fiancée in an elevator and claimed it was a “€œmistake”€”€”the other outstanding knight in shining armor is San Francisco’s Ray McDonald, who assaulted and injured his pregnant girlfriend. Then there’s Brandon Marshall of the Bears, who has roughly 12 arrests for beating up women, and most recently Panther Greg Hardy, who assaulted his girlfriend and threatened her with death.

The league’s recent admission that around 30 percent of players will suffer from accelerated cognitive impairment is as damning as it is hypocritical. All it has to do is change the rules. Go head-hunting and you”€™re out for the season. Do it again and you”€™re out, period. But that would change the game of football as it is today. Going back to the old Giants documentary, I was impressed by how articulate all the interviewed players were. And they had lasted far longer in the league than some of the clowns playing today. Or look at Mike Ditka, among the greatest ever, a man who took more shots than a drunk takes in a year. He’s old and stiff but bright and un-slurring as they come. That’s because back then the game was played under gentlemen’s rules, not the thuggish warfare that it has become today.

The cheerleaders of the TV networks, of course, will never admit that the game is out of control and the ruffian rules. We now even have a Muslim praying to Allah after scoring a touchdown. What is next? A halal Mary, or a sharia pass? An estimated 18 percent of black American teenage girls will become pregnant. The newborns may never know their fathers. Why pick on a few NFL stars for doing what comes naturally? Hitting out.