NFL Beginning Early

Every sport wants to pull a Big Tobacco and get people addicted when they're kids. That's why we have youth leagues, kids nights at the stadium, and action figures.

But the NFL is going to take it one step farther by creating a 22 episode cartoon series this NFL season on Nickelodeon.

I know this is not a new idea, but it's the NFL's idea. Therefore, it will work.

The focus of the cartoon series is a 10 year old boy whose super powers include those of an NFL player. It doesn't say which NFL player. Maybe he can throw it like Peyton and run like Chris Johnson. Or maybe he's as big as Leonard Davis, but has the skill set Ray Rice. That'd be kind of weird for a 10 year old.

The boy has to protect valuable objects that are hidden beneath various NFL stadiums, like the heating coils underneath Lambeau Field and Jimmy Hoffa's body under Giants Stadium. It sounds like a twist on the Harry Potter series. A very muscular, violent twist.

Sean Payton and Eli Manning are among the NFL people lending their voices to the series. This is a bit disappointing to me since I was hoping Eli would just stand there with dumb face like he does in real life. But kudos to him for being involved.

My ideas for characters in the series include:

-Tony Romo always wearing a backwards baseball cap and with a different starlet on his arm at all times.

-Brett Favre with a long, grey beard and retiring once every episode only to come back

-DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart as some sort of Gemini twins who finish each others sentences

-Steven Jackson in a wheelchair

-A monkey cage, but instead of monkeys, it has wide receivers in it. They are fed through the cage and they do all the things monkeys do including screaming and throwing feces at one another.

-And of course, the evil character would be Dan Snyder who looks to horde all the players and secret objects for himself.

It'll be big. I'll be in pictures I tells ya!