BECAUSE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN AWKWARD IF HE WERE IN THE SUPER BOWL IN MIAMI. Just kidding! He’s on the Browns. Anyway, The Rog has brought the ginger hammer down on Donte’ Stallworth, suspending the receiver for the entire 2009 season following a guilty plea for DUI manslaughter. Most people had guessed the suspension would be in the eight to 12 game range, but if you’re gonna go 3/4 of the season, you might as well go the whole hog and try to dispel all the lingering bitterness about leniency toward Leonard Little. Plus it saves the Browns from possibly padding their win total in December and screwing up their draft placement. Win-win! And, hey, if Donte’ has more problems with DUIs, WE GOT SCOOTERS!

Jim Mora, Jr.: Looks like we’re approaching the summit.

Roger Goodell: This has been a truly incredible experience. I really want to thank you for getting me to do this. I’m pushing myself to my physical limits in ways I’ve never called on myself to do at any point in my overwhelmingly privileged life. I thought meting out punishment to NFL players was something but this is a visceral thrill that cannot be matched. Unless you count indefinitely suspending players for vaguely unseemly off-field activities. That’s still tops in my book.

Jim Mora: Hey, it’s my pleasure.

Voice: Oh my god, it’s people!

Jim Mora, Jr.: Who goes there?

Voice: Wow, you’re the first guys I’ve seen in a while.

Jim Mora Jr.: Hey, that’s Dave Brown. Used to quarterback for Giants for a few years in the ’90s.

Roger Goodell: What in the world are you doing up here? And in full pads?

Dave Brown: Chris Calloway told me back in 1995 that if you lived at the top of a mountain, you never get old, or at least you would get old very, very slowly. Something about the elevation. So that’s what I’ve been doing for a while.

Jim Mora: So where is he then?

Dave Brown: He also told me black people don’t climb mountains. That’s why they die younger. His words.

Goodell: Hate to break it to you, but that’s not true in the slightest.

Dave Brown: Which part?

Goodell: Either. But especially the part about not getting older.

Mora: Yeah. It looks like you’ve aged horribly.

Dave Brown: C’mon man, that’s not cool. I’m as young and full of vitality as I ever was.

Goodell: Do you need some help getting down the mountain? We’ve got extra supplies. It looks like you’ve been a bit misinformed.

Dave Brown: Oh, I’m informed all right, Commissioner Goodell. I got info like you wouldn’t believe. Here’s one little nugget for you: I do know that your failure to help the ownership strike a deal with the player’s union will end in a lockout that could jeopardize the 2011 season, a singular disaster that will set into motion a series of cataclysmic events that results in the fall of man in 2012, just as the Mayans and Roland Emmerich have foretold. Also, I know you jerked it real quick one time in Jeffrey Lurie’s luxury box in Philly. And didn’t even wipe up.

Goodell: What? Wait. How do you know about that?

Dave Brown: [vanishes]

Goodell: Can we go home now?

Mora: Before you get mad, I just gotta say I wouldn’t have brought you up here if I knew Mount Rainier was haunted by the ghosts of crappy QBs who aren’t actually dead yet.

Goodell: I wish I could believe that.

Mora: And I won’t tell Paul Allen. Promise.

Bad News, Bills: Running back Marshawn Lynch, AKA e.e. crunkings, will be suspended for the first three games of the coming season after the off-season traffic stop that led to an illegal gun conviction.  It will cost him about $112,000 in salary, which may delay his trip to Fiji to see if the water is really like that.

But worry not, Bills fans.  As Marshawn stated in his most recent blog post:

its been kinda rough dis last month on me… but i held it together and stayed strong … i figured what don’t kill me make me stronger… i know i messed up before and even fumbled, but it’s something about me that a lot of people wouldn’t believe… i put my shirt and pants on da same way u do… but on a nother note, we started workouts again and its time to do work all over again… hold ya chin up… nuh nuh nuh… gone

Oh, Marshawn, you make me want to give up capital letters forever.

According to the terms of the suspension, fans of the franchise may not attend any of the Rams’ games during the months of September, be it the two home contests against the New York Giants and the Buffalo Bills or the road games at Seattle and Philadelphia. In addition, Rams fans are prohibited from watching any live telecast of the games, though they are free to liberally patronize league sponsors.

“League officials and myself have concluded that Rams fans have, in multiple instances, been in violation of the league’s personal fan conduct policy,” Goodell said from NFL headquarters in Manhattan. “Rather than a more lenient penalty which might promote a perception of permissiveness among the league’s fanbases, I have decided to levy a particularly harsh ruling in this case in the hopes that it will send a message to the rest of the league.”

He added, “I CAN IMPOSE MY WILL AS FAR AS MY ARMY CAN REACH! AND MY ARMY CAN REACH ANYWHERE! YOU HEAR? ANYWHERE! YOU WILL OBEY OR BE CRUSHED UNDERFOOT!”

Goodell said a few recent incidents had forced his hand on the matter. During a Week 13 game last season in the Edward Jones Dome between the Rams and the Atlanta Falcons, officials observed home fans standing in their seats during moments other than during the performance of the National Anthem, buying alcoholic products that sponsor the league and actually consuming them, and creating a sign taunting the Falcons that featured a cartoon devil.

Worst of all, Goodell said officials noticed numerous fans who violated the new policy by “detracting from the gameday experience,” a term so vague as to be useless except for when the NFL head office needs to punish someone arbitrarily, a quality Goodell particularly enjoys about it.

“That’s just the sort of unacceptable behavior that we’re trying to stamp out,” he said. “You there, reporter, what sound are you making?” he continued. “Breathing? I’m not familiar. Anyway, I find it distasteful. Please stop.”

NFL Fan Union president Catman pronounced the move a dramatic overreach. “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” he said by phone from his home in Greensboro, NC. “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BULL-SHIT! BULL-SHIT! BULL-SHIT!”

The reaction among Rams fans was a subdued one. “That’s too bad,” said Wayne Holbert, 43, of Kirkwood, MO. “Cardinals season’ll still be going on then, right? Ah, okay. Well then fuck the Rams.”