Top 10 Unspeakable NFL Lockout Protest Possibilities

Here's a small but fun rainy day dream...

We live in a country where a nebulous health care plan moved tens of thousands of Americans to go to meet their Congressperson, many of them armed. We also live in a place where tens of millions of people will pay to use their mobile phones to vote on a karaoke contest, think Flash mobs are fun, and seem to dream of posting a video on to the Web that gets a lot of hits, regardless of whether or not it causes them physical pain or risk of criminal prosecution. Finally, we have enough unemployment, and underemployment, especially among men that there is all kinds of people with all kinds of time on their hands. (Witness the Wisconsin movement.)

So I'm thinking -- hoping? praying? -- that when the NFL owners ruin the upcoming season, your fantasy league, and the long hot summer of nothing but mostly offense-free baseball, we won't just, you know, take it lying down, or with the beyond lame protests of the past when people stand around and wave signs.

Instead, let's all imagine a situation where stuff like this happens, as part of a whole Rise Up movement...

10) Sports Nation House Arrest. Hey, sports talk radio guys? Spend your unending timehole on the day to day movements and moments of the locking out owners. I'm sure that your army of unwashed and unruly would be happy to follow the swells around from place to place, just so that the service workers and everyone else can give these folks the very special attention they deserve. It's not as if the rich tip anyway, right?

9) Sit-ins. Not at the stadiums, though what the hey, the public pays for those, have at it. I'm thinking more along the lines at the owner's homes, especially for the little guys and girls who will be losing their jobs over this little fun experience. If Al Davis isn't paying your bills, the least he should do is house you. It's a mighty roomy crypt.

8) Vengeance cybercrime. All of these teams have Web sites, and many owners have social media presences. The average football fan isn't all that technically skilled to pull this off, but bitter fantasy nerds with all that time on their hands? We could be looking at a full-scale crushing that makes the attack on Bank of America look small. (And Skins Fan, feel free to have at the Daniel already; you don't need a lockout to feel the vengeance.)

7) Flash mob fan protests. Now that everyone has got a phone, can we (please) work out some kind of elaborate protests once the lords of football allow people back into the stadiums? Remember folks, as Cyrus says in "The Warriors", the numbers are with you. If everyone gives the owners' boxes the double bird and more at every opportunity, doesn't that have to have some sort of impact?

6) Outdoor signs. Just in the past month, we saw unhinged people spending their life savings to publicize the Rapture, as if that event needed a marketing budget or advertising campaign. (Probably the biggest reason why the Man upstairs called it off -- it's just demeaning to think that He needed pub.) So I'm thinking there might be more than a few outdoor displays of affection, either paid or unpaid. Perhaps more than, say, protests against wars, since we clearly care more about football than war...

5) Player league. This is my personal favorite, in that it has precedent (the 1910s, a wild time in American baseball) and a whole lot of fun points to it, especially since so many teams are meeting in players-only workouts and seem to be managing themselves rather well. If Drew Brees and 30+ guys from last year's Saints team plays Michael Vick and 30+ guys from last year's Eagles team, and the game is on television and the Internets, and the refs are all competent free agents and the stats more or less resemble what you'd get in a regulation game... you aren't watching that? I know I am, and plenty pf people are also buying tickets to see it. The players *are* the league; if they decide to play on their own, the owners can go pound sand. I don't know about you, but I'm OK with game in a high school yard if that's what gets it done. Put the pressure on, NFLPA...

4) Rival league. More realistic than the earlier scenario but still a pipedream, this assumes that there are a few dozen very wealthy Americans who enjoy football, don't own an NFL team, and can see the opportunity inherent in a wildly profitable and underserved market. Special bonus if this is how the USFL gets revived. I loves me some USFL.

3) Terrorist action. As John Lennon sings in his solo version of "Revolution No. 9"... when you are talking about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out... in. If someone were to go all Oklahoma City on an NFL complex or owner's residence at this point, would you be very surprised? Of course not; we are a nation of angry people with access to weapons, and anger plus weapons makes for some choices that come right out of a bad comic book, really. Luckily, the use of heavy stuff usually requires competence and secretive planning, not to mention cash that's usually out of the range of the unhinged. Sure would be a darn shame if something were to happen to Jerruh Jones' brand-new stadium or big teevee, though...

2) Class action lawsuit. Fantasy football is a very large industry that's about to pop like a balloon. Casino sportsbooks are legal in more states every day. Networks and advertisers and vendors and a million fellow traveler businesses, all twisting in the wind, all susceptible to the siren call of Lawyers Looking For Damages. It makes a fellow proud to be an American.

1) Police action. State and local governments are in the hole to teams on stadium projects. And the feds that solve, or better yet imprison in Gitmo, the fine perps at the head of this thing would be heroes. Either that, or just seize every team and their assets, and nationalize the sport, like the third-world country with oil relationship that this resembles. Viva La Revolution! (And yes, yes, I know, I've just outed myself on my dangerously leftist ways. But tell me, has the super right-wing nature of NFL monopoly served you well recently? Fans of Football, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your PSLs!)

Plus, this gives us all the better than sexpie vision of seeing Jerry Richardson sharing a prison with Rae Carruth. And yes, I know, I'm dreaming. But this is my blog, and I get my dreams here. Pretty, pretty dreams.

As always, you have the last word...