Nobody seems to want to say anything nice about the XFL. Everybody's old, stuck in their ways. They're tired, befuddled, slow.

This is new, man. We're not always sure what the question is, but the answer is simple: More football. And more violence in our football -- that's a no-brainer. Don't forget one thing: Fair catches are for girls. Girls and maybe guys who get manicures. You're going to die sometime, so why not while you're catching a punt? We've been saying that for years.

We just watched a Super Bowl that had all the appeal of a corneal abrasion. We just watched an NFL season that was decidedly underwhelming. So who wouldn't want to cozy up to a bunch of guys who couldn't play in that league? Who wouldn't want to buy into the concept of a high-tech, sexed-up version of prison ball?

And the red stripes on that ball? Cool.

Besides, the NFL has had a long and storied tradition of underutilizing the violence theme. Everybody knows that. The league, staid and outdated as it is, hasn't quite figured out how to exploit the prone-to-violence market.

A guy gets hit so hard he needs to go off on a cart with his helmet taped to a cervical board and what do we get? Never, ever more than eight or nine replays, sometimes from only three or four angles. And just look at the roster of pansies playing in the NFL: Ray Lewis, Michael Strahan, John Lynch, Jevon Kearse, Zach Thomas.

If those guys could actually play in the XFL, don't you think they would?

Obviously, let's not forget the one aspect of pro football that has been sorely neglected: The outrageous end-zone celebration. The XFL is going to move that into its rightful spot in the consciousness of mainstream America. Like every right-thinking American has been saying for years, all we need is a few more pelvic thrusts after touchdowns to snap this country out of its doldrums. If we get back to basics, everything will be fine.

This Week's List

There must be an exhaustive study on file in an advertising agency somewhere that answers this question: Are people who watch sports on television predisposed to making unnecessarily expensive collect phone calls?

What you learn from watching the Mark Chmura trial, besides that stuff about a 31-year-old man getting hammered at a prom party: Thomas Thunder is an acoustic and noise control engineer.

In a development that bypassed the normally steel-trap talking hairdos on CourtTV: Larry Lightning will be in Monday to assess lighting and shadows.

Guys in the limelight should get their props and all, which makes me wonder: Why does CourtTV identify Rae Carruth as "NFL star" and Mark Chmura as "NFL player"?

It's almost enough to make Marvin Lewis send a flaming resume to every GM: A year ago, nobody had heard of Mike Sherman, and now -- one non-playoff year later -- he's the head coach, GM and president of the Green Bay Packers.

Hey, no problem with that overrated privacy thing, because you never know when that lone scalper might decide to hijack a blimp, load it with explosives and run it into the upper deck: As they entered Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, Super Bowl fans were videotaped by police cameras in order to compare them with digital portraits of known criminals and terrorists; the effort identified one man -- a ticket scalper who vanished into the crowd.

This isn't to suggest that Tampa isn't a top-flight location for the Super Bowl, but: When a city boasts that it possesses "The World's Longest Sidewalk," you can take a wild guess and figure it ain't Rome.

They say he just killed on the interview: Kurt Schottenheimer was hired as Redskins' defensive coordinator.

Sure sign your team's in trouble: There's a headline reading "Ailing Feick's Return Date Seems In Sight" and it's looked upon as good news.

If you prevaricate -- OK, lie -- enough different ways, you can always be a man of your word: Butch Davis.

This isn't to suggest that Tampa isn't a top-flight location for the Super Bowl, but: One of the major-network affiliates repeatedly promotes a regular feature called "Living Longer With Linda."

Hair cuts for everyone!: As seen on TV, David Copperfield unearthed the Super Bowl prediction he made a week before the game -- Ravens 34, Giants 7.

Correction from previous column: All right, all right -- Tony Siragusa is a funny guy.

So one day I read about these new Clippers, all the exciting young players with promising futures, and I decided to look in the paper to see what all the fuss was about and this is what I saw: 14-33.

Don't bother me with the damn facts, I'm trying to watch the game: National conscience Larry King, in this week's exceedingly trenchant USA Today column, denounces the media coverage of Ray Lewis' involvement in a double murder by writing, "Sure, he did something, but enough already."

For those of you confused by the intricacies and nuance of the term "Super Bowl": The XFL's title game is officially called The Big Game at the End.

Say one thing for this week's "Open Mike" segment, starring Allen Iverson: It wasn't like he alienated his core constituency.

Oh, Lord help us -- what will we tell the children?: There's new evidence the '51 New York Giants cheated their way to the pennant.

Shaq or Kobe?: Shaq.

And finally, as the folks from Budweiser eventually came to understand: When in doubt, make fun of the white guys.

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail tim.keown@espnmag.com.