Once played a national fantasy football league with more than 10,000 players and ranked as high as No. 54 at one point. Now, just three years later, I can name more starters for Manchester United than the Washington Redskins.

   Are you listening, Paul Tagliabue?

   ***

   For the sports impaired, the NFL become the number one sports league in America under the guidance of a marketing genius, Pete Rozelle. It's since been run by a lawyer, Mr. Tagliabue, who insists on killing the game with an over-complicated set of rules, an overbearing fleet of officials, and an overwhelming obsession with due process. Did a ref blow a call? File an appeal, a writ of replay, and let the true God -- television -- sort it out. The game nowdays seems secondary to your ability to be a referee right from your own home, and no one seems to mind the new and improved replay system still sucks the sense of momentum out of the game.

   In soccer, a player can be lying on the field dying and play will not stop until the ball goes out of play. In the NFL, the officials will take time, routinely two minutes or more, to hold a sidebar conference before explaining there were penalties on both teams and that the penalties offset, which means nothing happens, and wasn't it just thrilling to have all those stripped shirts standing around talking? In soccer, the single ref can make one wave of his hand -- Play On! -- and that's that. No advantage gained, keep moving.

   In rugby, the person who is getting tackled relinquishes the ball on the way down to the ground and everyone except the tackler and the tacklee continues to pursue the pigskin. In the NFL, you need a chart as to when you can or cannot advance a fumble (especially on kicks, such as whether it was a muff versus a fumble, a distinction still lost on me). There's a rule where if you're knocked out of bounds, you have to come back onto the field of play, even though you're not allowed to make a tackle afterwards. Saw a penalty in an exhibition game for continuous action; I thought that was a virtue.

   Worst of all, the NFL has made a number of rule changes in recent years to bring back the kick return, the most exciting play in football. Except for one problem. After the kickoff return, when the crowd is roaring and the players are pumped, well, the NFL and its TV parasites have to sell beer, shoes and cars -- so momentum gets stopped dead and everyone stands around for two minutes before things resume.

   The dearth of action in an NFL game (variously estimated at six to 10 minutes of real action in a 60-minute tilt) is especially notable when you actually pay money to sit in the stands. You're standing and you're cheering because that big kickoff return is going to change momentum -- and then absolutely nothing happens until the commercials are done. So you've paid a ridiculous sum of money for the seats -- and you don't even get to watch the funny commercials like the people at home.

   But where international soccer really has it over the NFL is the element of endurance. International soccer combines sport and opera, where totally exhausted players in the 88th minute try to force their bodies to make one more run.

   In international soccer, teams are allowed two substitutes. That's it. Nine of the 11 lads will be out there for the duration. The NFL averages two substitutions per play nowdays, and depending on the defensive situation, you can see half the team switched for one 10-second skirmish.

   This NFL trend of situation substitution has made defensive alignments unbelievable complex, and the offenses have become even more complex in response. And that has led to a situation where star college quarterbacks are routinely expected to take years to be able to perform in the next level up. Years? Ronaldo was a star on the Brazilian 17 and under team; a year later he was a star on the Brazilian national team. He didn't have to worry about "Brown right, 37 A slant, X fly, Y curl on two." Ronaldo had to worry about breaking down his man one-on-one and putting the ball in the back of the net. Like my brother says, there are only two great plays: "South Pacific" and put the ball in the end zone.

   ***

   The dirty little secret of NASCAR is the racing is fun, but the real titillation is the crash. A similar thing can be said of the NFL -- it's not the game anymore as much as it's the collisions. Considering how many paralyzed players I've seen in my lifetime, I do not consider this a good trend.

   NFL TV commentators are reluctant to discuss X's and O's anymore because their consultants have told them it's too complicated for the viewers. They will never talk about agents who have made their money but ruined careers (Exhibit A: Leigh Steinberg and David Klinger and Exhibit B: Leigh Steinberg and Akili Smith). And the talking heads will never, ever talk about the stand-around-and-wait aspects of this game because it's during the standing around and waiting that the blue-blazered talking heads make their money.

   There's an inherent arrogance in monopolies -- and make no mistake about it, the NFL is the only place on Earth where communism has worked -- in that monopolies believe there's nowhere else for people to turn. Well, Mr. Tagliabue, it's a global economy nowdays, even in football. The satellite dish taught me I don't have to accept the same old same old. I can thrill to a David Beckham cross; I can watch Roberto Carlos snuff people in a way Darrell Green can only dream.

   Can you imagine the NFL handing out red cards instead of penalties -- instead of two 15-yard penalties against some andro-laced cheap shot artist, the ref sends him off and makes the defense play with only 10 men? Can you imagine miserable, take the money and run franchises like Cincinnati and Baltimore relegated to the minor leagues so teams -- and fans -- who actually try can be rewarded? Relegation shows the game is for the fans; the NFL shows it's about money for miserable putz owners like the Bidwells, Modells and Browns.

   It is not accidental that soccer is the most popular sport in the world, and it's not accidental that the NFL is stagnant while the NHL is booming -- it's got collisions, too; it's got simple rules and it's got continuous action. I firmly believe the day the U.S. Men's Soccer team equals the success of the women's team is the day the NFL goes on life support.

   Mr. Tabliabue may consider his contemporaries to be the NHL's Gary Bettman or the NBA's David Stern, but I argue a better example can be found in Mikhail Gorbachev. Tagliabue runs a communistic (share all the TV money) operation that's slowly losing the support of the people. Perestroika -- new thinking -- is needed. And excuse me, after seeing instant replay's ugly comeback, if I'm not optimistic.

   ***

   G.L. Marshall, who believes this country needs more soccer hooligans and fewer soccer moms, suffered a moral dilemma when having to pay money directly to Satan (Art Modell) just to see his Browns play inBaltimore Sept. 26th.