Hello, fellow football fans. Now that the NFL season has “kicked off,” I thought I would just write up a quick little memo praising America for its continued support of NFL Football. Baseball may have the numbers (thanks to playing 90% more games), but we know the NFL is the true #1 sport in the U.S., and our fans are one of the largest parts of that. So thanks, fans! We here in the front office are convinced that this will be the greatest year in the history of the league, and we know a lot of coaches and players agree.

Sadly, however, there are a lot of “nattering nabobs of negativity” out there, by which I mostly just mean journalists — and, of course, by “journalists” I mean sad little creatures that might once have been human bent on dragging our league down into the gutter where they scramble for life among tufts of hair and discarded Pringles cans. These ghoulish morlocks focus relentlessly on everything that they deem wrong with the NFL, grateful for the opportunity to tear down another national institution to feed their bloodlust.

I know that most football fans are able to look beyond these hyped-up over-generalizations. But, for those who find themselves seduced by unscrupulous inkstained vampires, let’s talk about what makes the NFL great. How many of you saw the game last night? Pretty convincing performance by the Indianapolis Colts, wasn’t it? Not that the New Orleans Saints didn’t give it their all — because they sure did. But the Colts were sharp behind the precision passing of Peyton Manning, the spunky running of Joseph Addai, and the sure hands of Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne. And what about that defense? Coach Tony Dungy must be laughing today about all the people who said his defense wasn’t very good against the run, or the pass, or really anything.

See, that’s all the kind of drama the NFL needs: just two great football teams going at it with each other for sixty minutes. But trust the “bloggers” and “whistle-blowers” to go on and on about what one particular player might have or might not have done with or to some of his canine friends! This whole mess has made the league look bad, and I admit to certain ambiguous feelings about it myself. Yet, as a deep thinker recently pointed out, it would be wrong to blame the player in question — instead, we should show the Judeo-Christian values of forgiveness, absolution, and forgetfulness. Wipe the slate clean, that’s what I say. Not that that is official NFL policy or anything; we no longer exist in that kind of world.

Similarly, why is everyone jumping on the bandwagon and blaming certain other NFL individuals for taking illegal performance-enhancing chemicals? One rarely hears anything about baseball players who take steroids or HGH — why is everyone picking on football all of a sudden? And other writers, who aren’t even science experts, are all aflame to talk about the medical risks of repeated concussive events to the brain. Has no one ever heard about all the studies about soccer players losing brain cells by “heading” the ball all over the place their whole lives? At least our players wear helmets…and gleaming white teeth instead of snaggly orange fangs. (Sorry, couldn’t resist a cheap shot there.)

In the same vein, I’m sick of hearing about the following things, none of which are necessarily endemic to the NFL at all: alcohol and drug abuse, spousal abuse, gun ownership (strip-club-related shooting incidents included), high prices for exhibition games, high prices for regular season games, high prices for Super Bowl advertisements, Janet Jackson’s nipple on the Super Bowl halftime show, Prince’s penis-guitar on the Super Bowl halftime show, poor-quality Super Bowl games, boring Pro Bowl games, pensions for retired players — not all of whom are permanently crippled, thank you very much –, the poor quality of several franchises (especially one located in a desert), the lack of pro football in the nation’s second-largest city, instant replay as the supposed savior of NFL referees, NFL referees in general, Pink’s theme for “Football Night in America,” Tony Kornheiser, John Madden and/or his All-Madden Team, Al Davis, Lee Corso blabbering on about the supposedly unsullied game of college football which we all know is just as corrupt and money-controlled as the NFL ever was, Bill Belichek’s clothes, Bill Belichek nailing any Boston-area MILF with a pulse, Tom Brady and Matt Leinart inseminating anything that moves, Nicolette Sheridan jumping on Terrell Owens, Donovan McNabb’s mom, Matt Hasselbeck’s mom, what’s his name in San Francisco wanting to wear a suit cause he thinks it makes him look like Paul Freakin’ Brown, Paul Freakin’ Brown, the gay pirate that used to be on Tampa Bay’s helmets, projectiles thrown by Philly and Cleveland and New York fans, how nothing could ever be as great as the “frozen tundra” game ever in a million years not even if you tried ah they just don’t make ’em like that anymore, Chris Berman, cheerleaders lezzing up in a bathroom, Brett Favre retiring or not, Deion Sanders on the NFL Network, Adam Schefter on the NFL Network, the NFL Network at all, the influence of hip-hop, “The Super Bowl Shuffle,” Rosey Grier doing needlepoint, Jim Marshall’s wrong-way run, Tom Dempsey’s half-a-foot, the “Sixth Man” trademark controversy, NFL games overseas and in Mexico, the CFL, the Arena Football League, Mark Cuban’s new football league, parity, Matt Millen, Ben Roethlisberger’s motorcycle helmet, the United Way, the new kickoff rules, Kelly Clarkson’s new album, those pictures of Vanessa Hudgens, global warming, or anything having to do with Tiki Barber.

Instead, let’s just stay focused on the great game of football itself. Can’t we just agree to do that?

Please?

Roger Goodell is the commissioner of the National Football League.