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In an interesting twist to the ongoing efforts by the league to promote safety, the NFL is now including the behavior of its fans while attending games to its agenda.
According to a report by ABC's Darren Rovell, the NFL is implementing a policy in which fans ejected from stadiums for fighting are permanently barred from future games unless they apologize, and take an extensive online anger management course.
The report itself focuses on a fight that broke out at Houston's Reliant Stadium, and seemed to be between Texans fans and a guy in a Matt Leinart USC jersey, and maybe another with a Reggie Bush USC jersey, fighting with guys in Texans' jerseys (the humor of the fact most of the Texans' fans fighting appear to be wearing Andre Johnson jerseys isn't lost on us, invoking memories of his 1-round brawl with then Titans CB Cortland Finnegan).
Outside of that, the report digs into a fight during a 49ers-Raiders game, an Eagles game and the classic, shining moment in Browns history when they decided to pelt the field with beer bottles.
Interesting how the Steelers play most of those teams this year.
The league's refusal to allow these chowderheads back into their stadiums is a good idea. The requirement of anger management classes (which costs upwards of $100, according to Rovell) shows the league is serious, and requires some effort on the part of the moron in order to return to a game.
It'll highly likely be something other leagues will implement very soon, and seems a fair way to deal with a completely ridiculous and unnecessary problem within sports.