You can call NFL players all the names you want from the bleachers on Sunday, but God forbid you happen to create a TV show that characterizes the sport as something less than a bastion of button-down professionalism.

Such is the predicament of ESPN with its (self-proclaimed) "hit" drama "Playmakers." The real NFL players that are portrayed have fallen all over themselves in the press crying, "It's not like that!"

Never mind that almost all of the story lines have been lifted from the headlines, a la "Law and Order."

Never mind that they don't use NFL names, likenesses or logos.

Never mind that ... well ... it's ONLY A SHOW, people!

These NFL ballers, boy, are they are pissed. Just listen to Warren Sapp, who once blindsided a player into the hospital for six days, and then challenged the opposing coach to "put a jersey on, if you are so tough." Warren would know sensational plot writing, wouldn't he?

""That's the worst show on TV," Sapp said. "If you were in our locker room and did what we did day in and day out, that's a slap in your face. You put this TV show on like this is reality. This is my profession ... It's not a joke."

Of course, this kind of reaction would be like a district attorney complaining about "Law and Order" by saying, "That show is crap! I've never wrapped up a murder case in ONE HOUR!"

And even if some of these things had happened in real life, they say the typical refrain is "but not all on ONE team!"

"Oh yeah," I counter. "Ever heard of the Carolina Panthers?"

In a remarkably short eight years of existence, this expansion franchise in a sleepy southern town has managed to author the following real life football related mayhem:

Their star wide receiver had gunmen murder his pregnant girlfriend on the way home from the movies. Their star running back tried to escape drug charges by stowing away in a trunk of a car to Tennessee. Later, when he returned to town, he walked into his own home and was shot dead at point blank range by his (very angry) wife.

Their franchise quarterback got punched out at a team barbeque for uttering a racial slur. He would later tell his coach that "his heart was not into playing quarterback" and was released two weeks later. Just three years earlier, this guy was the team's #1 pick. Later, with his next team, this same drunk of a quarterback ended up getting thrown into the local pokey for a DUI, and famously stumbled out at 4 a.m. looking very disheveled and with a cigar in his mouth.

The Panthers had a player attack a coach on the sidelines. They had another player cold-cock a teammate while sitting in film session (film session!) in a dispute over a woman. The attack was so violent, the victimized teammate ended up in the hospital. Did they cut the guy who threw the punch? Nope. Still with the team.