There are two schools of thought when it comes to the NFL season which opens this week for the 88^th time:

Either the league will conquer North America as it usually does between Labor Day and Valentine’s Day and all other sports leagues will look on drooling with envy, or as many wags, pundits and writers are insisting, its days as the “Teflon” sports league are now officially over.

So – which is it gonna be?

Astronomically speaking the dog days of summer are over, however for the NFL, now that the sporting world’s focus is officially back on football, they are just beginning.

These past months the hits have just kept coming. The guns, the gangs, the drugs involving both players and coaches, the strip club shootouts, the dumped $350,000 car on the overpass – it’s been a busy time for the PR types at league head office.

New commish Roger “Bad Cop-Bad Cop” Goodell said, “I can tell you what I talk about to the players to a large extent, which is the fact that we’re in the NFL and it’s a privilege, whether you are commissioner, player, coach or in the public-relations department.”

Never before have PR hacks been included in such illustrious league company.

And I bet they were thrilled with the help they received from Whoopi Goldberg in regards to Michael Vick when she let us know on The View that, “from where he comes from” in the South, dogfighting isn’t that unusual. Ya – a few years back the same thing could have been said about lynching.

As a result of all that bad press, in the weeks leading up to a season’s start, for the first time, a commissioner is taking up far more space in the press than the likes of the sports on-field stars like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. The defender of football’s faith, he’s been out in front of each tragic turn since he took office.

Pacman Jones was a bad actor who was involved in police incidents a very impressive 11 times but was never charged with anything. Regardless he faced the long arm of Goodell’s justice and was essentially kicked out of football. Vick was persona non grata at the Falcons training camp as soon the news stories started to swirl about Bad Newz Kennels – and was suspended indefinitely once the guilty plea was issued.

Just this week Goodell suspended Rodney Harrison, the strong safety for the heavily favoured New England Patriots for his involvement in performance-enhancing drugs. He even suspended a coach, the Dallas Cowboys’ Wade Wilson who was on them to fight diabetes.

He has had to be so proactive because he knows essentially the league has only one way to go – and that’s down. The TV deal’s Goodell inherited from his predecessor, Paul Tagliabue are simply staggering. Annually $3.1 billion is guaranteed to be split by the owners, meaning before a single seat is filled or a beer or jersey purchased, most are profitable.

Yet many in and around the league fear the days of that kind of money trough could be numbered due to the NFL’s ongoing image problems. Advertisers are all about image – so how many dog food ads are you going to see during NFL games this upcoming season do you think?

That kind of image trickle down could potentially hurt the golden goose that is the NFL.

That said, football in the fall is part of American culture – so can all this piled on bad newz shake the faith of the typical football fan?  

The simple answer is, despite all the off-season collective hand-wringing, no.

The NFL brand is as strong as it has ever been, and will continue to get stronger. Adversity draws attention – and any press is good press, regardless of how bad it sounds.

Just before kickoff, there will be the ongoing talk of who did what and when if ever will some players be allowed back on the field, but to paraphrase William Shakespeare, “the play is the thing.”

The ball will be kicked off at 8:30 PM ET on Thursday night and all will be forgiven until after the Super Bowl.

Then we have the off-season to care about the bad stuff.

Cheers – Gavin McDougald – AKA Couch