Three days after one of the most exciting and heartwarming Super Bowls in history and just five days after NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue proclaimed "we don't tolerate misconduct," a second league player now sits in a jail cell facing murder charges.

Beyond the obvious image problems for a league historically obsessed with public relations, questions are being raised about the attitude of players in the game today and whether there is anything the league can do about violence off the field.

"I get former players calling me saying, 'Wow, what's going on with today's guys?' " said Larry Lee, the Detroit Lions vice president of football operations and a player from 1981-90 with three different teams.

	Ravens All-Pro linebacker Ray Lewis is the second active NFL player in a month to be charged with murder.

"When we played, we looked at ourselves as the few, the proud. We considered ourselves the upper echelon and we tried to act like it. I think now some of that has left the game. I think money has something to do with it, the changing of the business, free agency. ... Today's athletes pretty much run the show, and they know it. They have the right to shop themselves, go with the highest bidder. The loyalty factor isn't there anymore. The community ties aren't there anymore."

Baltimore Ravens Pro Bowl linebacker Ray Lewis was arrested hours after Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta, where unheralded Kurt Warner led the surprising St. Louis Rams to over the equally surprising Tennessee Titans, 23-16. For his alleged part in the slayings of two men outside a nightclub, Lewis became the second NFL player charged with murder in the last 10 weeks.

In late November, police arrested Carolina Panthers receiver Rae Carruth, who faces the death penalty for his alleged part in a drive-by shooting that eventually left his pregnant girlfriend dead.

This season's off-field transgressions started in July, when New York Jets linemen Jumbo Elliott and Jason Fabini were arrested with a former Jet for their part in a bar-room brawl. During the season, Indianapolis Colts defensive back Steve Muhammad was charged with beating his wife just days before she died from labor complications later attributed to a car accident. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in her death but still faces domestic battery charges, according to authorities. Troubled running back Cecil Collins was released by the Miami Dolphins after being picked up for burglary.

Even the Super Bowl playing field wasn't immune. Rams linebacker Leonard Little played despite being only a little more than a year removed from killing a woman during a drunk-driving incident.

Though the Carruth and Lewis incidents are unrelated (and Lewis' lawyer has said he is innocent), they have left some observers asking what is going on?

"I've struggled with that question myself," said former NFL star Stanley Morgan, now a player agent. "Why is this happening in this day and time? There's a lot more of it. When I was playing, you didn't hear about athletes shooting and killing people. Maybe guys would get into a bar fight, but it didn't escalate to weapons."

Said Lee, whose duties include overseeing player assistance programs for the Lions, "Today's athletes are their own guys. They don't have to conform to management the way we had to. But, rightfully so to a point. They are the most important people in the organization. There's a different element of player coming today.

"It's really unfortunate that these kinds of things happen. It's almost a sign of the times. It seems like the world is getting worse."

The incidents and the tone of player behavior caused Tagliabue to express concern about violence at his annual Super Bowl press conference last Friday.

"Can we separate ourselves from society? Of course not," he said. "We can't predict what NFL players will do any more than we can predict students shooting other students or workers shooting fellow workers.

"On the other hand, we don't tolerate misconduct. We don't condone it."

The NFL on Tuesday released a statement on Lewis saying only it is aware of the situation and had no further comment. Ravens officials did not comment beyond a brief statement of support for Lewis, who last year signed a four-year, $26 million contract with a $7 million signing bonus.

Gene Washington, the NFL's chief disciplinarian, was quoted from a radio interview admitting, "We certainly, for (Lewis') own good, hope that it's not true, and for the good of the NFL."

University of St. Louis sports historian Chuck Korr, who calls the NFL the "best image-builder of any corporation in America," says this is new territory for the league.

"There is nothing (to compare it to)," he said. "The NFL over the last few years has had a steady stream of players being charged with convicted of spousal abuse, fighting, drunk driving, running off the road after a DUI. You have the occasional coach caught up in the same problem. The NFL's approach has always been, 'It's just a couple of people here and a couple of people there,' and that's what I think they'll try and do now."

But criminal behavior among athletes isn't an aberration, according to a book entitled "Pros and Cons: The criminals who play in the NFL", which found that 21 percent of active players from 1996-97 had been arrested or convicted of serious crimes. The NFL has disputed these findings.

Lee says he believes the NFL is doing "a great job in trying to give attention to the players." Lee spoke of rookie seminars where drafted players go for indoctrination into the league. He said the league has an anti-crime policy for players, coaches and administrators that includes counseling, fines or suspension depending on the violation.

Most teams also have a position called Director of Player Programs, which is designed to assist players in areas from financial advice to continuing their college education to careers outside football to family and personal issues.

Said Gill Byrd, executive director of player programs and community affairs for the Green Bay Packers, "These players are in a fishbowl. There's a lot of pressure on them."

Byrd said he thinks the situation with Lewis and Carruth are "aberrations. ... There's more good in this league than bad."

Still, the bad makes the news.

"An athlete is like a politician, in that they put themselves in the public spotlight and find reasonable advantage to be in the public domain," said Arthur Bernstein, of United Sports Fans of America, a fan advocacy group. "It's not right for fans to go into the players' bedrooms, but we should expect them to maintain the same standards as civilized society.

"The NFL, obviously, is facing a serious image problem."