I actually started having second thoughts about it over the weekend, despite writing a week or so ago that I would do so if the NFL did not solve its labor issues by July 15.

They seem to be close to arriving at a deal. But they have seemed close to coming to a deal for two or three weeks now. Enough is enough.

Even as early as this morning, however, I thought DirecTV might get a reprieve. A friend emailed me information that DirecTV was offering its Sunday Ticket package for free for the season. That would seem to be a reasonable offer. But after a little reading and a couple of phone calls, I learned that, of course, DirecTV was only offering that deal to new subscribers.

Existing subscribers, I was told, are appreciated, but ineligible for the service. So DirecTV is competing with most cell phone companies and who the hell knows how many other businesses in treating new clients better than existing ones. Does nobody remember how much it costs to get a lost customer back?

So, anyway, for the 2011 season DirecTV is ineligible to keep my business, at least as far as Sunday Ticket goes. I can use that $300-and-change on other things.

Again, as I have written before, I am aware that my little protest alone is not going to have much of an impact on the business of the league or DirecTV. But I share in the hopes of AOL FanHouse Columnist David Steele, who writes at SportingNews.com that he hopes fans do not “give their love back to the NFL for free.”

I agree. Regardless of whether they return in time to play a full season or not, the owners and the players have cost us virtually the entire offseason. Let’s have some pride as fans and make them pay in the pocketbook enough so they can feel it.

Sports Illustrated’s Peter King devoted a good chunk of his Monday Morning Quarterback today to finding a way to get more “contributors” to the game enshrined in Canton, Ohio as well. He makes a compelling case that many non-players deserve to be enshrined. I think he’s probably right — I particularly agree with the case he made for the Ed Sabol, who founded NFL Films.

I’m not sure, however, if the three alternatives he proposes for making the change to ensure more contributor honorees make the most sense to me (though at first glance I don’t have an obviously better answer, either).

Stolen directly from his column, King’s three proposed options include:

1. Take one of the two Seniors slots and give it annually to a non-head coaching contributor to the game, which wouldn’t mean a contributor wouldn’t get in every year, but rather that one contributor’s case would be heard every year.
2. Take one of the two Seniors slots every other year and give it annually to a contributor.
3. Take the two non-modern-era-candidate slots and make them fit for all other candidates — seniors, scouts, etc.

I admit, I’m not an expert on how the voters would go about changing the process. I do know that the limit on modern era candidates is five and the  limit on senior committee candidates is two, for a maximum of seven inductees to the Hall in any given year. To me, as the NFL Hall of Fame prepares to expand its physical footprint anyway, it seems like you could simply add one more slot each year for a “contributor” and make the maximum number of entrants each year eight – with no requirement that number be voted in, of course.

But as I said, I don’t know for sure what the procedure is for making a change like this. So, I’m asking our readers for thoughts. Should more contributors be recognized? If so, how would you suggest changing the voting process? If not, why?

And while you’re sharing your thoughts on this topic I’ll see if I can’t find some clarity to the process under which such a change to the voting could be made.

“The Mole and Meares Show,” however, hit the jackpot recently, if only for a week. The duo was contacted  by a producer at NFL Films for a piece Showtime’s “Inside the NFL” show is doing on social media and its influence on sports.

Showtime sent correspondent Susannah Collins to the basement studio where Christopher Meares Greg Molyneaux, have filmed “The Mole & Meares Show” since 2008.

The site includes weekly video, where Mole and Meares pick winners for their four games of the week. They then refer viewers to their website, www.moleandmeares.com, where they unveil the rest of their picks, publish their power rankings and host a contest where visitors can pick games and win prizes.

NFL Films shot footage of “The Mole & Meares Show” and Collins did a guest spot. In exchange, Mole and Meares shed their jerseys for suits for a week and used the NFL Films studios to tape their Week 15 show.

“They wanted to show the transformation of a basement show to a professionally created show,” Meares writes, adding that Showtime’s staff filmed the makeup process, the suiting up and the meetings with a director.  Showtime also did all the editing for the show.

When Meares, who also blogs on CBS Sports, contacted me about the segment, which he says is scheduled to air Wednesday, December 22, I told him he could consider me jealous. He indicated that I shouldn’t be, that the opportunity likely arose more from the duos’ proximity to the studios — they’re 20 minutes away.

Doesn’t matter. I’m jealous anyway. Congratulations to Mole & Meares. I hope your segment leads to big things. Best of luck.

In the last few years I hadn’t bought Athlon. I thought they had traded the compilation of a lot of important news in exchange for being the first magazine on the racks. But this was Memorial Day weekend and I had some free time on my hands at the cabin of some relatives. So I decided to pick it up.

And I think it’s a better magazine than I remember from past years. First, Athlon has added thoughts from NFL scouts and opposing coaches on every team – and some of the notes are compelling. For instance, one expert noted the discomfort Tom Brady showed in the pocket as New England’s quarterback in his first year back from a torn ACL. “The knee injury had something to do with it, but some quarterbacks never get that feeling back,” he notes.

Then there’s the Fantasy Flash, where the magazine makes a prediction – not always going with the obvious (for example, Brandon Gibson was selected for St. Louis, not Steven Jackson) – and provides an explanation for who and why someone might be a good player to target in upcoming drafts.

Finally, interesting profiles on Jets Coach Rex Ryan and on the increasing prominence of 4,000 yard passers and the aerial game throughout the league made the magazine a good holiday weekend pickup.

It’s still not perfect. Because it came out in late May, there are still going to be a lot of changes the magazine misses out on in making sure it gets out right away. But it has found a way to still provide a compelling read for those football fans who can’t wait another few weeks for the rest of the magazines that will soon follow.

In recent weeks, he has posted his opinion that:

- The Vikings should bench Adrian Peterson because he fumbles too much – did he look up the per carry fumbles of other young, future star running backs like Eric Dickerson, Tony Dorsett, Walter Payton, et al? And when he fumbled at the end of the Chicago game (which by the way was lost at least equally if not more so by an ineptly played special teams performance and a defense that generated no pass rush and gave up 36 points to the Bears) it was his first drop in four games. Furthermore he ran for nearly 1400 yards and 18 touchdowns this season – and was criticized throughout the season for not breaking enough big runs. For those numbers in, potentially, a down season, I’ll take seven fumbles.

- The NFL eliminating supplemental revenue sharing likely wouldn’t affect the league’s competitive balance because it never has before. This simply ignores the fact that there has been a salary cap preventing teams from dramatically outspending their league brethren the way the Yankees outspend every other team in Major League Baseball. Does he seriously think that owners like Daniel Snyder and Jerry Jones wouldn’t do the same thing the Yankees do in an uncapped NFL?

- He picked Washington to go to the Super Bowl from the NFC. Not that I saw them collapsing to the degree they did, but anyone who thought the Redskins would be better than Dallas, Philly or the Giants heading into the season was delusional. Florio was at his best when he was watch dogging hypocritical ownership moves, updating the days-between-arrests count and sniping at questionable media decisions. As an analyst of games and personnel decisions, nowadays he seems to think he’s as good as the “experts” and those making the calls. I disagree.

But just in the last week or so, he has posted two articles that are possibly the most ludicrous yet:

- In a recent brief piece on the Chris Henry tragedy, Florio tries to show off his legal knowledge in analyzing the situation around his fiancé publicly claiming Henry jumped from the truck—while basically accusing Chris Henry’s fiancé of lying.  She may be lying, she may be telling the truth, but for Florio to say “the explanation doesn’t make a whole lot of sense” implies that the entire scenario has any chance of ever making sense when in reality it’s very possible based on current reporting and past experience that Henry was distraught or under the influence of something or who knows what else.

I’m not saying that is what happened, but to ignore the possibility that this could just be one of those situations where every possible explanation is a head shaker is idiotic – if not libelous, if it CAN be proven that Henry’s fiancé’s statements are true. Hell, media accounts differ on the specifics, but depending on different accounts reports indicate that a witness told authorities and/or media outlets that Henry either threatened to his fiancée that he would kill himself or to specifically jump out of the truck if she didn’t stop. To basically discount the possibility that this might be what happened … dangerous territory.

- In another recent post, he proposes a “solution” to the late season “dilemma” of teams resting starters, in which he basically proposes that the NFL go to an NCAA Men’s Basketball approach by having a non-biased (good luck finding that) committee decide upon playoff seedings.  While we’re at, let’s go NBA/NHL style by adding a couple more playoff teams to the mix (because nothing says you’re the best like being one of 50% of the teams to make the playoffs)—but just to make sure that it’s ridiculous as possible, let’s decide those last two playoff teams not by wins and losses, but by how they play late in the season.

That’s right, under his proposal, he would have the 5-11 Browns in the playoffs, despite winning 4 fewer games than the Steelers, who finished ahead of them in the standings.

“Let’s face it – a revolutionary adjustment is needed …,” he wrote.

NO!

No adjustment is needed. The Colts are facing the wrath of their fans. That’s all that needs to happen there. The fans have a right to voice their opinions. They paid the money to go to the games. But let’s not blow this completely out of proportion. Don’t screw up a system that works very well with the asininity of turning it into some committee-driven crap. The Saints won 13 games. So they lost the last three – the first 13 don’t mean anything then? They don’t deserve to play at home?

Hogwash.

They won MORE GAMES THAN ANYONE ELSE. They deserve to play at home.

The reason it’s not random anymore like it was in 1972 when the Steelers hosted the undefeated Dolphins (as Florio cites as evidence in his post) IS BECAUSE IT MAKES SENSE TO REWARD THE TEAM THAT WON THE MOST GAMES WITH HOME-FIELD.

And furthermore, while I can understand why the Colts’ fans are upset that they didn’t make a more concerted effort to go 16-0 – and I acknowledge that the following week’s decision to play Manning, Clark and Wayne until they each achieved their individual stat paddings is a confusing contradiction to their week 16 decisions – at the end of the day, they won more games than any other team in the AFC – weeks 16 and 17 couldn’t change that – and they are entitled to protect their stars/give their young guys some experience as they see fit.

Sure, 19-0 would be impressive. Even historical. But the Super Bowl is the big goal and fans, journalists, bloggers and guys like Florio need to remember that. If the Colts win the Super Bowl this will be a side note.

Now, this isn’t an original thought – it’s been posted in many other places already. But let’s take the other scenario: The Colts continue playing their starters through each of the last two games and Peyton Manning suffers a serious knee injury that takes him out for the rest of this season and affects him into next year (This is not all that unrealistic – ala Wes Welker from this Sunday. Welker had played in 14 games this year, 16 games the last four seasons and 15 as a rookie in 2004 before shredding his knee, according to NFL.com).

In that scenario, instead of Curtis Painter playing in garbage time, he becomes the quarterback for the last two regular season games and the playoff. Now I’ll wait for Florio or some other critic to paint some rah rah scenario where the Colts gain mythical inspiration and rally around their inexperienced starter to go the distance. Sorry, the Colts don’t win the Super Bowl with Painter, nor do they complete the 16-0 historical season they are being decried for not chasing.

Beyond the complaints of the fan base this is a non-issue. Teams that lock up playoff seedings early have been resting guys late in the season for years. The only reason anyone cares this year is because the Colts were undefeated heading into week 16. Should they have “chased history?” Maybe. But they also should make sure the core of the team that got them there is available to try and win the Lombardi Trophy.

Teams that “need help” to get into the playoffs should quit whining because they had just as many opportunities to take care of business during the season as every other team. Take the Steelers this year. They lost twice to division winner Cincinnati and once to division rival Baltimore. Additionally, they were beaten by Chicago (7-9), Kansas City (4-12), Oakland (5-11), and Cleveland (5-11) on the way to a 9-7 record.

That’s four losses to teams with a combined record of 21-43 to finish one win better than .500. Win one of those games and they are in. You don’t get to complain about someone else when you lose those four games, Pittsburgh Steelers. Your city, your franchise, and most importantly your coach are and should be too proud to whine about what other teams are doing to keep you out of the playoffs. You brought this upon yourselves. You did not earn your trip to the playoffs this year, regardless of what teams like Indianapolis, Cincinnati and New England did in week 17.

Texans owner Bob McNair was complaining that the Bengals didn’t take their “A-game” to New York for the Jets Sunday night. Guess what. The Texans lost twice to the Colts in games they led, twice to the Jaguars (a non-playoff team), and once to Arizona, Tennessee and those same Jets to whom they lost the final playoff spot. Again – win any one more of those games and you’re in the playoffs.

Or take the Jets, for example. They got into the playoffs on the strength of beating the Colts team that benched some of its starters and then dismantling a Bengals team that couldn’t do much to change its playoff seeding.

Also too bad. Sure, the Jets did get the luck of the draw to some degree. But they still had to win the games. They still have a defense that gave up just 236 points on the season, best in the NFL. And they have one of the league’s best run games. The Jets can go to the playoffs without offering apologies to anyone. Even if the Bengals had been on their game it’s unlikely they would have beaten New York on that night.

Take your playoff situations out of the hands of your rivals’ opponents. Take care of business when you are on the field. Then it won’t matter who Indianapolis, New Orleans, Cincinnati and whoever else plays in week 17. You’ll be the one deciding whether or not to play your starters.

The playoff scenario Florio proposes – adding two teams based on how they play at the end of the season (Cleveland, Houston, Carolina, and San Francisco or Atlanta) and seeding the six that do get in there using a committee – it’s laughable that this scenario ever made it to print. The beauty of the NFL as opposed to college football’s BCS and the NCAA tournament is that the participants are decided on the field. Wins and losses – and yes, wins and losses in games being played by starters or backups – determine who gets in, where the games are played and who stays home.

I don’t want some back room collection of stooges determining that the Saints’ 13-3 season is less deserving of a home game in the playoffs than the Cowboys’ 11-5 record because Dallas played well in December or because they have a nice new stadium with a giant-ass television screen. And I sure as hell don’t want that same committee deciding that because Cleveland played hard and won its last four games (two of which came against Oakland and Kansas City, by the way), the Browns now deserve a place in the playoffs despite starting the season 1-11. That’s ridiculous. They looked much better the last month of the season and they gave their fans some hope for the future. But they don’t deserve to be anywhere near the playoffs.

The season is 16 games long. Each game needs to count. And they count under the scenarios they are played under, whether it’s Cleveland knocking off whoever they beat in the last four meaningless games or it’s Indianapolis trying to go undefeated using backups instead of starters (and yes, it’s not like Curtis Painter handed the ball to the defense every time he took a snap – these are NFL players and they were most definitely trying to win, whether they were successful or not) so they knew they would head into the playoffs healthy.

I’m not saying I agree with the Colts’ decision. Resting their stars hasn’t worked well for them in the past. But they have the right to do it. And making some rash change to a playoff system that works just friggin’ fine as it sits would be massively foolish. Ridiculously, massively foolish. Like league-altering dumb. Like worse than a bunch of billionaire owners locking out a bunch of millionaire players because these two groups of rich clowns can’t figure out how to cut up their massive pie of dollars.

And that last part is why I’m writing this response – because the clowns that run this league and these teams are just out-of-touch enough to act in such a magnanimously stupid way.

I’m not saying Florio should pull the plug. He’s what many bloggers are shooting for – he turned his near-decade-old one-man shop into a partnership with NBC, regular gigs on multiple radio shows, spots on Notre Dame’s halftime shows and on dozens of other appearances for which he now constantly pimps himself. He’s been successful, probably one of the most successful of his kind.

And he continues to do a nice job shedding light on some stories mainstream media outlets are missing on, such as what should probably be a bigger controversy in Washington, D.C. stemming from whether or not the Redskins shirked the Rooney Rule before hiring Mike Shanahan as their new head coach.

Those are the types of things he was great at before landing the NBC partnership and deciding he had to have a voice on each and every aspect of every decision made by every facet of the NFL.

Some of his posts have been getting more and more out there all season long. And this radical proposal to re-write the playoff format was so stupid as to need a response.

I asked my wife, a non-football fan, if she noticed. It took her a minute – she guessed two or three times and couldn’t come up with it.

Then the NFL Network folks fixed whatever the problem was and the announcers and their constant babble were back. But the announcer-free six or seven minutes that started the game were among the most pleasant football viewing I’ve done in awhile. Not that all announcers are bad – but many of them do talk a lot more than they need to in order to make the game entertaining.

Maybe this is something they could learn from.

Television’s fascination with Favre jumps to yet another level, however, as Fox has announced plans for a Favre-cam.

Yes, Fox will have one of its cameras set to do nothing but follow Favre’s every move from the time he exits the tunnel until the time he returns to the locker room – who knows, maybe they’ll even follow him to the shower. Whatever footage they get will be streamed live on NFL.com.

Really?

I get that it’s a big game and that Favre’s return to the stadium he called home for 16 years is a big deal. But isn’t this taking it a step too far?

There are 53 guys on each team. There’s going to be roughly half the game where Favre is either watching the Vikings’ defense or, more likely, dissecting coaching photos.

Unreal. I didn’t think television’s love affair with the aging quarterback could get any more ridiculous. Clearly I’m wrong.

The NFL is no stranger to Sharpton, who has been critical of hiring practices for coaches, assistant coaches and general managers in the past.

Now, Sharpton is targeting another level of the NFL–ownership. And he isn’t just claiming racism–he’s declaring that a potential owner is…”Anti-NFL?”

News broke last week that Rush Limbaugh was part of an ownership group that is attempting to purchase the St. Louis Rams.  There’s no word yet on what percentage of the team Limbaugh would own, or what type of role he would play in day to day business, although one would suspect his role would be minor, since he’s got to grace us all with his golden pipes for 3 hours a day.

However, a few years back, while doing a stint with the geniuses over at ESPN, Limbaugh made an accusation that had racial overtones, claiming that Donovan McNabb was overrated, due to the media (and league’s) hope that a black quarterback succeed in the NFL:

“Sorry to say this, I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go,” Limbaugh said. “I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”

For presumably this reason, Sharpton sent the NFL a letter asking Commissioner Roger Goodell to not even consider Limbaugh’s bid, as Sharpton claims that “Limbaugh has been “anti-NFL” in his comments about several of the league’s players, specifically naming Philadelphia Eagles quarterbacks Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick.”

So now Sharpton knows better than the commissioner, the other owners, the players and the fans of the NFL what is “Pro-NFL” and what is “Anti-NFL.”  Never mind that one owner is making claims that the salary cap and revenue sharing (generally considered “Pro-NFL” by most people I know) will be going away, and another owner (who happens to have a long history of suing the league) has made so many questionable moves in the last 2+ seasons that the NFL should strongly consider intervening on his behalf.

Not that I’m pro-Limbaugh getting an ownership stake, mind you–I just think that if they dig hard enough, they’ll find other, legitimate reasons to possibly weed him out.  And if not, well then so be it–if they want to give him a seat at the table, that’s their prerogative.

Sharpton should really go back to…whatever it is that he does outside of try to incite racial riots, and leave NFL business decisions to those who are actually in charge of the NFL.  They have plenty of experience(and potential for) screwing things up on their own, without his help.

John Herrera, a “senior executive” for the team, told the press Gannon wasn’t welcome because of “incendiary” comments the Raiders’ one-time quarterback has made about the Raiders’ organization since he became a broadcaster.

The Raiders gave in because they basically don’t have the right to keep a network broadcaster away. But when Gannon wasn’t able to catch a flight to Oakland in time to spend time with team officials heading into the game, Herrera apparently told the Oakland Tribune it “was a win-win situation for us.”

Newsflash for the Raiders: That would be the first multiple win situation this team has had in quite awhile.

Bill Callahan replaced Jon Gruden as the Raiders’ head coach in 2002. He led the team to the Super Bowl, got crushed by Tampa and then promptly lost the team. In the years since, the Raiders have had five coaches and won respectively 4, 5, 4, 2, 4, and 5 games.

During those years, owner Al Davis recycled Norv Turner for two years, re-hired Art Shell for a year, and spent a year-and-a-quarter somehow making Lane Kiffin look like a sympathetic character.

When he fired Kiffin four games into the 2008 season he turned to Tom Cable to finish the season. And then when such luminaries as Steve Sarkisian turned down the job during the 2008 offseason, Davis gave Cable the job on a permanent basis. … Or at least as permanent a basis as Davis hands out the coaching job anyway.

Davis followed that up by shocking everyone in the draft with his first two picks in the April draft just a few months after jettisoning most of the players signed during the free agency session before the 2008 season – a collection of signings that were widely panned – if not openly mocked – by critics.

Yet, despite these strange moves, under Cable’s leadership, it actually looked at the outset of this season as though there might be a glimmer of hope. The Raiders played gamely in the opener before losing to a supremely talented San Diego squad. Oakland was then outplayed by Kansas City but found a way to win, evening their record at 1-1.

But this week’s outbursts against Gannon were followed by another joke of a game against Denver. Darren McFadden fumbled three times in that game and quarterback JaMarcus Russell followed up two putrid passing performances with a slightly less putrid one in the Broncos’ defeat.

Now, training camp rumors of a physical altercation between Cable and assistant Randy Hanson are resurfacing as well. Cable denied the rumors in August when they first came out. At that time Hanson wasn’t talking.

Now, Hanson told the Napa Valley Police that Cable broke his jaw.

So not only has Davis gone through coaches at about one a year, but the one he hired is allegedly solving conflicts with co-workers by using his fists.

And Herrera wants sympathy because Gannon says the Raiders’ organization should be blown up and rebuilt from the ground?

Nope. I don’t think so.

Come on Mr. Davis. You’ve run a great organization. You had a fantastic career. You’ve won Super Bowls and introduced players and coaches at the Hall of Fame. But your organization is in disarray. You’ve won 25 games in six years. Your drafts have been busts. Your free agent signings have been worse. Coaches beating coaches …

That’s not Gannon’s fault. It’s time to move on.

For instance, during the NFL draft this past spring, I was watching the draft and following along on Twitter at the same time, gauging reaction from fans (and in a couple cases communicating directly with them) around the country (globe?) in real time, as the picks rolled in.

Further, as we’ve built our list of people we follow, we now occasionally find news tidbits that we will write about, or explore further on Zoneblitz.

More recently, we’ve started following a lot of NFL players, teams, and league employees (and even Drew Rosenhaus…although we still feel kind of dirty about that), watching for their opinions and comments on league happenings.  A lot of it is crap, but again, at times it’s entertaining.

To that end, we’ve started putting together a list of all of the official NFL team, player, and media profiles that we’ve found, so that anyone who’s into Twitter can find their favorite team’s players, and start following them as well.

We’ll do our best to finish the list (we’re probably not even half way there yet), and keep it updated–but feel free to contact us if you see something that we’ve failed to catch.