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Why? Why? Why?

Why must the NFL insist on holding these season-opening concerts? Can't we all just watch some football? Why must we be force-fed the Rolling Stones, Green Day, Santana, Maroon 5, Trisha Yearwood, Good Charlotte, Kanye West and (pause for breath)Rihanna?

(Speaking of Kanye, I'm guessing there's no chance he makes it on air. Not after his "ad-lib" performance during the Katrina telethon on Friday. Yikes!)

You know what's at work here, don't you? It's this insidious thing that network execs like to call "the merging of sports and entertainment." It's this despicable notion that football - football, people! - isn't entertaining enough for us. Nooooooo. We have to have live music performances as well, or else we'll all tune to CSI instead.

Look, I get this to a certain extent. There's a reason we have dizzy-bat races and sumo wrestling contests at minor league baseball games. The on-field product needs a little off-field boost. But that's baseball. And it's the minor leagues. This is football! And this is the NFL! This is America's sport! (I don't want to hear any arguments from you baseball purists. There is no room for discussion here).

So why, why, why, do we feel the need to stage a horribly forced, plastic version of Woodstock before the game?

And while we're at it, why the Rolling Stones? Are they really appealing to that 18-34 demographic that advertisers covet? Listening to sports radio this morning, I believe one caller put it best:

"Do we really need to listen to 80-year olds sing about teenage alienation?"

and followed it up with this zinger

"The Rolling Stones were has-beens when my parents were teenagers!"

Ouch.

Thankfully, I've at least got a choice here. I can tune in after all the pre-game irrelevance, when the ball has kicked off and the football has begun.

You'd better believe that's what I'm going to do.