Ooops!!!!

Quick, call "the Geek Squad!" They mounted this dag-gone
fancy HDTV too low in our big party room!!!

You’d think after spending 1.15 billion dollars for the ultimate fancy new football stadium something like this wouldn’t happen, but tomorrow, Tuesday, August 25, 2009 the NFL competition committee has a red hot emergency to deal with. Saturday night, the Dallas Cowboys performed one of their two dress rehearsals for opening day in their fancy new home to the shock and awe of football fans worldwide as the game was nationally televised on the Fox network. Everything about Dallas Cowboys Stadium, a name that will last until naming rights can be sold for the highest price tag ever for such a transaction, is Texas tall, gigantic, huge, overwhelming. Every gizmo, doodad, modern gadget, and luxury touch is there. It’s about as humble as the Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones, so shall we call it “Jerryland” or maybe “Jonestown.”

Yes, they thought of every detail down to the microscopic level, but this is the high tech, high definition era, so no expense would be spared on having one magnificent scoreboard and display. Hanging from the roof, at 160 feet wide and 72 feet tall, its high definition screen is the world’s largest. That’s 11,520 square feet! Wouldn’t it be fun to hook up the Blue-Ray player, crank up the sound, and watch your favorite movie?

Saturday night was the opening performance in Jerry’s big showcase, the Cowboys against the Tennessee Titans. No matter what hoopla surrounds the opening of a new football stadium or how unique the venue, the goal lines are always 100 yards apart, once the ball is kicked off, it’s football. Some play on real grass. Some play on synthetics. Some are open to the stars. Some are indoors. Every city’s crowd has its own character from the raw madness of M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore to the more polite laid back feel at some west coast arenas; the game is still the game.

Or is it?

Everything looked like a regular football game until 8:07 in the fourth quarter when the Tennessee Titans lined up to punt. Titans punter, A.J. Trapasso let it fly. DOINK!!! The punt crashed into the multimillion dollar high definition score display. No harm done to the fancy equipment, not even a blip on the screen, but what’s supposed to happen? In the God awful confines of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg Florida, hitters routinely bop the catwalks in that atrocious indoor baseball arena, ground rules address that ruling such encounters are home runs, but this is something new for football.

Naturally, Jerry Jones, seldom at a loss for words, had something to say, “If you look at how you punt the football, unless you're trying to hit the scoreboard, you punt the ball to get downfield. You certainly want to get some hang time, but you punt the ball to get downfield, and you sure don't punt the ball down the middle. You punt it off to the side."

Yeah right! What would the story be had it been the Dallas punter.

The officials on the field ordered the down be replayed. Fair enough, but this is not something that anyone in the NFL wants to be a regular course in games that count. Surely, there might be some ways to abuse that.

The bottom line is the bottom of the display hangs too low. While it is supposedly compliant with league specifications, such a situation has not been encountered in other indoorsy stadiums.

So the NFL brain trust will gather tomorrow to issue their sacred edict. Will they come up with some exotic rule or make the most sensible ruling that will provide some of the best television all summer, order the display be pulled up higher. Exploding scoreboards have been featured since Bill Veeck designed such craziness when he owned the Chicago White Sox and wired up the scoreboard at old Comiskey Park. But tune in to your nightly news, NFL Network, or SportsCenter tomorrow and watch the antics of the exploding NFL franchise owner. It’s hard to imagine any ruling will not drive the Cowboys owner totally mad.

All this is one more thing that makes us glad the real season with real football games are on the way. Has there ever been an offseason with more headlines from the Brett Favre soap opera, yes he really is going to play for the Minnesota Vikings to some much darker and more horrible stories we’re all too familiar with the horrible tales that played out.

Here in Baltimore, we love our Ravens and our stadium fits us just fine. We’re darned proud of it and for those of us who’ve been down the road to that other NFL field in Maryland; no one would ever trade M&T Bank Stadium for FedEx Field.