[NFL Ministry of Culture]

Sentry: Authorized visitor in Sector 23819. Open cell!

Guard: Opening cell!

[Cell door opens, pained groans emanate from within]

Roger Goodell: Are we awake?

M.I.A.: Uggghhhh… where am I?

Goodell: I’ll ask the questions.

M.I.A.: This is bullsh*t. You can’t hold me. I have rights. People will find out about this. They’ll -

Goodell: Subdue the prisoner.

[Guard chokes her with NFL-branded nightstick]

Goodell: I can do as I please. Tell me, Ms. – ahem – Arulpragasam, is it? How was a performer of your artistic integrity or relevance able to gain entry to the most important and tightly controlled entertainment spectacle in the world?

M.I.A.: Madonna invited me.

Goodell: Liar.

M.I.A.: She did. Ask her.

Goodell: LISTEN, I WILL BULLDOZE SRI LANKA RIGHT NOW. YOUR HOMELAND WILL BE A PERMANENT PRO BOWL SITE IF YOU DON’T GIVE ME THE ANSWERS I WANT.

M.I.A.: Fine. Me said me was Jessie J.

Goodell: And they believed you?

M.I.A.: ‘Course. No one actually knows what Jessie J. looks like.

Goodell: Hmm. Clever girl. I’ll give you that much. Such a waste of potential.

M.I.A.: What are you going to do with me?

Goodell: All in due time. First, I must know: what did you hope to achieve through your vulgar display of terrorist agitprop?

M.I.A.: Me was, like, making a message about the neo-imperialist dogma that permeates the kult-cha.

Goodell: Neo-imperialist dogma. I see.

M.I.A.: It’s somefing you could never understand.

Goodell: I suppose that’s true. Immaterial, but true. For, you see, it is not my job to understand. Rather, it is I who must make you understand.

M.I.A.: Understand what?

Goodell: THE FCC DOESN’T LIKE BAD WORDS, NAUGHTY GESTURES AND EXPOSED NIPPLES! IT’S THE ONE THING THAT CAN STOP TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION AND SYNERGISTIC BRANDING OPPORTUNITIES

M.I.A.: I don’t care.

Goodell: Oh, but you will. SEND HER IN!

Selena Gomez: Sup grrrl. U look maaaaddd kewt!

M.I.A: OH NO

Selena Gomez: I’m in luvs and it’s like a luv song.

Goodell: Once you have succumbed to her mental programming, you will become pliant to our every suggestion. You will apologize for ever sullying the Super Bowl Halftime Show. You will hawk Pepsi on every inch of your body. You and J.Lo will sell Fiats until the day your children die. You’ll put out an critically acclaimed album about the 18-game season. YOU WILL CONVINCE BRITISH PEOPLE TO CANCEL THE OLYMPICS AND PROCEED WITH ORGANIZING A LONDON SUPER BOWL.

Selena Gomez: And I keep hitting re-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat re-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat re-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat re-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat

M.I.A.: MUST RESIST

Selena Gomez: Re-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat DISSSSSNEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYY

Get an all-access pass to exclusive insider NFL content with the new official monthly publication of the NFL! Each month, NFL MAGAZINE provides insight about the game that cannot be found anywhere else, with the exception of our gracious broadcast, print and online media partners. You’ll go behind the scenes. Not so far behind the scenes to where things get uncomfortable. No one likes that. We’re talking a gently guided tour to an area just behind the scenes where things are still tightly regimented and nothing gets out of hand. You’ll like it; it’s nice. Subscribe now for 12 issues over one year. If there’s another lockout, we promise not to bill you for those months!

Read on for a peek at the fantastic NFL content crammed into the first issue.

“GLORY TO TEBOW IN THE MILE HIGHEST”

Our inaugural issue cover story celebrates Tebowmania! It’s the new Hulkamania! It’s The New New Testament! It’s the reason for the season! He’s winning the Iowa straw poll. ABC wants him to be president. He has a beer that sounds vaguely Jewish. Lindsey Vonn is hanging out in his pants for some reason! Is it too early to suggest that Tebow is bigger than God? Is Tebowing Tebowism actually a polytheist religion in which Tebow is multiple gods all at once? This would explain his doing everything at once for the Broncos.

SIDEBAR: “ARE YOU A HATER?”

Telltale signs that you might be a hater. Have you not bought your officially licensed Tim Tebow jersey and Tim Tebow Tebowing Fathead? Have you not renounced any preexisted belief system and pledged your life to defending Runslinger faith? What’s the holdup? Too busy HATING? Already blew through your monthly income purchasing hate tracts full of hating statistics for haters? Are you one of those people so consumed with hate that seeing others find joy in the salvation of their sport? Are you that small? That petty? Is life for you so devoid of basic human compassion that you must ruin for others the joy you cannot possess? Here is a child in a Tebow jersey. You tell him there’s no Tebowmania. Bet you’ll feel real big.

FAN MAIL

You tell us if you’ve spotted any YouTube accounts committing copyright violations against the NFL and we spring into action!

FROM THE DESK OF THE ROG

In his monthly column, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell takes a break from staggered push-ups to be outwardly amused by the state of the NBA post-lockout. Vetoed trades! $7 million for Kwame Brown! 5 years, $67 million for Nene! Ho ho, too rich!

“WHAT’S DEMAURICE SMITH GOT TO HIDE?”

We ask the pressing question. Well, what is it? What’s under that hat, DeMaurice? If we had to guess, we’d say HGH! No surprise why we can’t test the players like you said we could. Graphic insert: a history of iniquitous acts by the NFLPA.

“YOU KNOW WHAT MOVIE I’D LIKE TO SEE? WAR HORSE!”

Six NFL superstars express their desire to see the holiday season blockbuster. poorly marked special advertising section

“GO SCREW, TIME WARNER CABLE”

A tastefully decadent photo essay by Annie Leibovitz of families blissfully enjoying NFL Network Thursday night broadcasts.

HOW DOES A PAKISTANI OWN A TEAM BEFORE A BLACK GUY?

Special online-only column from Jason Whitlock that someone will have to e-mail him the link so he can tweet it.

40-PAGE NFL SHOP INSERT

Sideline hats! Each more atrocious than the last!

THE BLACKOUT

Short story by Margaret Atwood. A harrowing tale of the lengths a man was forced to go to to watch his beloved Bengals when the team was once again blacked out on local television.

“WHEN MEN WERE MEN AND CONCUSSIONS WERE JUST HEADACHES”

Mike Ditka recalls the time a teammate’s head separated clean from his body. “The guy rubbed dirt on it and plopped it right back on his neck. Missed one snap, tops. He never uttered a word about it, either. Back then, if you tried to complain about an injury, we ripped out your voicebox with our teeth while making boar sounds. Called it throat bacon. Bill Romanowski knows what I’m talking about. And lemme tell you, the world was better for it.”

“JAMES HARRISON: UNCONSCIONABLE MONSTER WHO MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS”

He hits people in the head! Where did he learn that? And what if he did it to Tebow? Or your children? We want to ban him from the league, but DeMaurice Smith won’t let us!

“WILL THE BUBBLY BURST?”

A French vintner despairs that the sales of his most obnoxious champagne will plunge if the ’72 Dolphins are no longer able to celebrate being the only perfect team.

The entire NFL community is saddened by the loss of Dave Duerson. A stellar competitor on the field and an upstanding citizen and ambassador of the game off of it, Duerson leaves behind a proud legacy that touched many across the sport. While the circumstances of his passing are at once distressing and tragic, it is important that we not allow the alarmist members of the media to draw cursory conclusions based on uninformed assumption for the sake of further skewing public perception of a complex issue.

It is true that Duerson chose to shoot himself in the chest as a means to preserve his brain for study on the effects of playing football on cognitive function in the later stages of life.The more impetuous observers have elected to interpret this as a suggestion by Duerson that he suffered in recent years as a direct result of playing in the NFL. Nothing could be further from the truth. What hasn’t been promulgated by reporters is the result of testing on Duerson’s brain conducted immediately postmortem under the auspices of the Ted Johnson Center for Sucking It Up and Rubbing Some Dirt On It at the University of Colorado. The following determinations were made:

- Playing football did not result in any decay of cerebral tissue. In some cases, swelling of the brain did occur, but that’s the brain getting larger. One might even say that head shots made him smarter. And his brain more like his penis. ‘Bout time, right fellas?

- Dave Duerson was never at any point in his career a “defenseless receiver” so by the very laws of physics, it is impossible that he could have sustained any devastating hits. No devastating hits indicates no devastation. It says so right here in the updated rule book.

- Brain scans showed the onset depression in Duerson came upon the realization that player pensions were, in fact, TOO generous and that such largesse by the ownership might bankrupt the league.

- Buttressing the claim made by Buddy Ryan, the tests indicated that Duerson possessed levels of intelligence that measured highly by the standards of the negro race.

- Yes, the NFL has different standards of intelligence based on race. Do with that what you will, scribblers.

- Did you know I once broke up a bar fight? So collective bargaining don’t mean shit to me.

- The desire to donate his brain to science likely precipitated Duerson’s death. So eager was he to have his brain toyed with by quacks and pseudoscientists in the field of buzzkillology that he wanted to hurry up and be dead so he brain could make it to science nirvana. From this we can conclude that fields of research dealing in studying the cognitive effects of football pose a threat to the longevity of our the players. It is in the best interest in all involved that the players’ union work in tandem with the league to quash any and all further inquiry into this dangerous fringe subject.

In keeping with standard league policy via-a-vis damning evidence, the NFL has summarily disposed of Dave Duerson’s brain after having decided that internal investigation was sufficient on the matter. This has no doubt allayed the fears of the public on the matter and we hope it has given comfort to the relatives of the deceased as well. It should also stop my stupid older brothers from calling me “Retard.” Seriously, enough’s enough, dicks.

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.”