Gee, Your New Rule Smells Terrific

There's now a proposal — by, surprisingly, the Kansas City Chiefs — to ban long hair in the NFL next season. The owners will consider it at their meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., next week, because, you know, all the major prblems with the league have been solved. The Steelers' Troy Polamalu is waiting anxiously by his phone for any news.

The rule banning long hair on the field was proposed by Kansas City. It does not require players to get haircuts, but does "require them to tuck it up inside their helmets," said Atlanta president Rich McKay, chairman of the league's competition committee. Polamalu is the best known of the players, most of them defensive backs, with hair flowing outside their helmets. Others include cornerbacks Al Harris of Green Bay and Mike McKenzie of New Orleans.

If enacted, this will eliminate one of my favorite plays in football: the grabbing-of-the-ponytail-and-slinging-to-the-turf tackle, which we saw in 2006 when the Chiefs' Larry Johnson did it to Polamalu during an interception return. There's also a rumor that you can do this in Madden '08, although I haven't personally seen it.

NFL Owners Consider Ban On Long Hair [The Sporting News]