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.

In fairness to the Panthers, I have left out probably half a dozen DUIs. I just felt it would be piling on.

So my claim after seeing all of one episode of "Playmakers" is not that it's unrealistic.

No, I claim that it is NOT REALISTIC ENOUGH!

(Side Note: Those who watch the show on a regular basis claim that all the players have initials and/or nicknames that make obvious references to real life NFL players. I don't know anything about that, but I do know that the team in the show is called the "Cougars" and they have a silver and teal color scheme. Hmm ...)

Look, the show is hardly what I would call "great" but it is better than "Season on the Brink." So I suppose that would be called progress for the fledgling filmmakers in Bristol, Conn. But if anybody tries to sell you some jive that the story lines would NEVER happen in the real NFL, then just walk them through some things that really did happen. You know, things that if they were only in a script and not in real life, you would laugh at the absurdity.

You know, things like a wide receiver whipping a pen out of his sock to autograph the game ball in the end zone. Or a kicker nailing a 45 yard field goal in blizzard conditions so thick that you couldn't even SEE 45 yards. Maybe have an episode where a player throws his helmet on the last play of the game, not knowing the play isn't over, and giving the other team a free field goal to win with no time on the clock. Maybe a game where referees have to run for cover, because an instant replay call brings down a shower of beer bottles, requiring the commissioner to call the players back onto the field some 40 minutes later just to "finish" the game.

You got your Canadian kickers who rip their all-pro quarterback on a TV show, and then get punked by the same QB at the Pro Bowl on national TV as being an "idiot kicker who got liquored up and ran his mouth." How about players who steal money from a teammate's pants in the locker room (Albert Connell on Duece McCallister) and when caught claim that it was all just a "practical joke." You think that's a joke! How about the all-pro offensive lineman getting the wife of the star wide receiver pregnant! (Willie Roaf on Joe Horn).

Not enough? OK. How about the Dallas Cowboys from say 1994-1999? A prostitution and drug "safe house" right near the training facility, coaches with guns in their carry-ons, and an owner who fired the previous coach who had won back-to-back Super Bowls because he got into a drunken argument about who should get all the credit. Attacks on teammates with electric scissors at the barber shop. Two names: Nate Newton and Michael Irvin. Go ahead, just stop me when you've got enough. And remember, this stuff never happens ALL ON THE SAME TEAM!

How about the #2 overall draft pick, whose QB career was notable for having notched the lowest single game passer rating of all time? The same QB who in an infantile snit in the lockeroom, screeched at a reporter "don't talk to me, just cut it out!" He was on the DL once with a bum shoulder, and was seen playing flag football with that same bum shoulder in the local park with a bunch of drunken weekend warriors.

How about a fan jumping some 30 feet to bare concrete from the stands, and catching a field goal perfectly on the way down and living to tell about it?

All these NFL legends are real, and they are all from the TOP OF MY HEAD! No really, I swear. I have three pages of scribbled notes for when I actually compile the "complete list of Playamkers storylines coming to a television near you."

If you have a real life NFL story that would be too extreme to believe if it was written into a script, go ahead and shoot me an e-mail. If nothing else, we'll sell the really "good ones" to ESPN.

God I can't wait for the NBA version of this show. Because nothing ever ridiculous ever happens in that pro sports league, either.