OBSTRUCTED VIEW

Some NFL TV rules worth breaking

I’M A LAW-and-order guy. I don’t litter, I pay my taxes, I no longer steal hotel towels, and I’ve never rebroadcasted or retransmitted any account of a game without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball.

And though I’d never advocate public disobedience, there are rules made to be broken — blissfully ignored.

It happened again last Sunday. After investing nearly 3 hours and 25 minutes watching the Packers and Bengals on Fox, the game, a wild one deep in overtime with one decisive play left, was pulled, “by rule,” from viewers in this region for the 4:25 kickoff of Giants-Cowboys.

Thus, the final scene from the allday movie was pulled from view, the final chapter of the mystery ripped from the book. Yes, torture — cruel and unusual punishment — as per the NFL’s TV rules.

Now, if the first moving images we saw from Arlington, Texas, had been the actual kickoff, we could better understand. But we know by now, as per Giants and Jets late afternoon telecasts, that’s seldom the case. Thus, the agonizing switch out of Packers-Bengals came at 4:23, in time to see local ads and promos, then a scene-setter from Joe Buck who, naturally, introduced his partner as “the Hall of Famer, Troy Aikman.”

“It was,” writes reader Malcolm MacKinnon, “like watching the movie ‘Psycho’ when Vera Miles goes down to the basement, and suddenly ... “Andy Griffith Show’ reruns.”

If I were at the controls at Fox, I’d have multi-tasked: broken the rules while playing stupid.

I’d have shown the game-ending — er, walk-off — Packers field goal, then cut to Dallas, whistling and looking around as if I didn’t know any better other than to best serve Fox’s audience, shame on me.

If there were make-goods to be made with local advertisers, figure it out Monday. Ya think local Fox affiliates would go on record as objecting to sticking for a few more seconds with an OT game rather than promo that Monday’s local weather forecasts to be heard during that night’s newscasts? Not a chance.

If the NFL objected, let the world know that the league insists that its networks choose local ads and needless scene-setters over watching the compelling end of a game in which its fans already had invested 3 hours and 23 minutes.

I hope that the NFL wouldn’t say a word, that it would be quietly pleased that its inflexible rule was ignored.

You think Roger Goodell would’ve left the room to holler into a phone, “They’re sticking with an OT game rather than cut to Joe Buck’s opening remarks! I’ll have their necks!”?

And what about all those NFLinspired gamblers? Didn’t they buy the right to watch their action until the end? Green Bay, after all, was a 3-point favorite.

Or, Goodell to Fox: “Just for that, we’re no longer cashing your checks!” Yeah, sure.

You want an inflexible rule that makes sense? How’s this: You’re not to be in commercials when a touchdown is scored. Strictly forbidden.

That happened when the Giants scored in the second quarter to tie the game. What Buck described as a breakdown in communications after Giants QB Daniel Jones was left staggering from a helmet-tohelmet hit forced us to watch a commercial for Sonic rather than Devontae Booker’s TD dive from the 1-yard line on fourth down.

Of course, after seeing what befell Jones, who was the first player Fox chose to focus on — he was seen standing on the sidelines awaiting the start of the game — we’d have never left the field to cram in unanticipated commercials; we’d have stuck with Jones. But what do we know?

So in under one hour, Fox, in concert with the NFL, deprived us the sight of the finish to an OT game, then the sight of a game-tying Giants TD.

As Goodell, seen in an NFL Network hagiography, once explained to a group of NFL fans: “It’s all about our fans.” That was just before his bogus hustle of PSLs as “good investments.”

That recorded gathering was in Wisconsin, among Packers fans. Goodell, in exchange for maximum TV money, has since scheduled several Packers home games at night in dangerous arctic weather, moving one fan to write that if Goodell had left his dog out in such conditions, “he’d be arrested.”

But, “It’s all about our fans.”