The venerable NFL Competition Committee, ever wary of keeping its image at more than an arm's length of its unseemly corrupt collegiate cousin, today announced a provision forbidding teams from changing the color of their playing surface from the traditional green without league approval. Pro purists snobbishly nodded along, ever wary of the league potentially losing the numb uniformity its corporate sponsors and branding strategists have spent the last decade refining. Because when you start going blue and red like those damn kids in I-AA, that's when the integrity of the game is at risk.
An ESPN report cited Falcons owner Arthur Blank justifying the new rule - "the concern was that sponsors could approach teams and suggest a deal that involved altering a field's color" - or, in less diplomatic terms, Your 2012 Dallas Pepsi Cowboys! (Say out loud it three times fast, and recoil with horror at its "natural" sound)
Certainly Blank had good reason to champion the amendment, residing in the potentially tackiest division of NFL sans-homeowner's covenants. Imagine a Bank of America stadium in Charlotte after the Panthers inevitably embrace the true spirit of the native NASCAR (Something involving Dickies and a Clausen). It's a miracle the Panthers have operated this long without succumbing - same goes for the so-far Affliction apparel-free field at Raymond James Stadium, but the best scenario from Tuesday's rulings is that we'll never suffer a Mardi Gras inspired Superdome playing field, just in case the city of New Orleans would forget just the once to remind us all how culturally significant they are (and you aren't).