If you’re used to attending College football games and you’ve never attended an NFL game, you’re in for a real treat. The NFL drafts its players from the cream of the crop of Division I schools from across the nation and the fans are...well the fans are nuts. Forget painted faces and marching bands; think obnoxious white men filled with testosterone and alcohol.

Oh, and now that the NFL appeals to the female fan, don’t forget their matching wives. But it’s all in good fun. Like Roman times, tens of thousands of onlookers cheer or jeer. Sometimes it’s a “Here we go defense, here we go!” or a really lame, “First and 10, let’s do it again!”

Occasionally when someone screams for the life of the first-born son of the opposing team’s quarterback, I just assume that they learned that in Catholic school, as I wasn’t taught that at public school. Then again, I don’t cheer or jeer much, I just take photos and write what I see.

Of course the fans aren’t just there to get hammered, they’re there to watch athletes twice as tall, twice as fast and twice as hung as the rest of us earn their lotto-winner-like salaries. And I have to admit; the players are twice as tall and twice as fast as I am. In fact, watching them on TV doesn’t do them justice. If you haven’t watched a 6’4” man with three-percent body fat catch a football traveling at 65 miles per hour with one hand, my friend, you haven’t lived. And luckily for us, there are just enough media personnel to cover all of this action.

Like the other two major sports, the NBA and MLB (I’m not counting the NHL since I can’t watch them on TV anymore), the NFL is seen and adored by millions over the globe. The press box is filled with local and national media and the sidelines are swarming with photographers.

If you can’t watch your favorite team on the local stations, they’re sure to be on pay-per-view. If you can’t watch the game as it happens, there’s always TiVo or a VCR. If you don’t own a television, you can read about it in the newspaper the next day. If you can’t read...learn. So, needless to say, it’s fairly easy for fans to get the coverage they need on the NFL.

So what happened during the Browns and Jets match-up two Sundays ago? Quarterback Jeff Garcia was thrown around like a rag doll. Receivers and cornerbacks lightheartedly trash-talked. Three hundred pound linemen pushed, held and shoved and Cleveland’s punter was booed, twice. But by the time the game ended, nobody got punched.

Not a single player or fan was ejected and some of the more religious players from both teams kneeled down in a circle after the game and thanked their respective Gods for a game where there was minimal injury and for the opportunity to do what they do for a living.

As we’ve all seen during the previous few weeks, basketball players have punched fans on the court and in the stands and college football players have brawled in the end zone. But at this game players from the Cleveland Browns and the New York Jets acted like the professionals they are. They got to work on time, they played hard, and they entertained the crowd. Like chivalry, sportsmanship still exists. And for that, I was thankful.