This was one of those weeks of which the NFL can be particularly proud. We had Jets’ DB Antonio Cromartie (DB stands for defensive back, not deserted babies) curse Tom Brady for the sin of being a superb quarterback.

(Rex Ryan approved of Cromartie’s comments on freedom-of-expression grounds, as if Cromartie were Thomas Bleepin’ Paine, and because, as we know by now, going low and being crude is how Ryan’s Jets roll.

Terrell Suggs, Ravens linebacker, showed up before the media wearing a shirt carrying a vulgar message for the Steelers.

And Suggs’s coach, John Harbaugh, openly stated that he’s glad his team broke Ben Roethlisberger’s nose, last month.

Charming. Why not cut to the core and re-title the playoffs the Bloods vs. the Crips?

Yep, just what the doctor ordered, a little more center-stage coarseness in service to the young and impressionable.

Not that Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, should be expected to know, but there actually are rules prohibiting the above noted misconduct. From Page 6 of the League Policies for Players:

“It is important to note that unsportsmanlike conduct rules apply to personnel in the team area, including players, coaches, team employees and officials. Lack of respect or other unsportsmanlike conduct will not be tolerated during games or at other times, including postgame interviews. This includes abusive, threatening, insulting or profane language or gestures. . .”

Well, it can’t be that important to note or the NFL would have noted it — then acted on it.

Then there’s this:

“The media is a direct link between you and the fans that [sic] support our game. That is why it’s important to you and your club that you present yourself to the media in a professional manner. The use of abusive, insulting, obscene or profane language or gestures is strictly prohibited and will subject offenders to discipline.”

But important NFL rules are made to be broken. Or ignored.

The NFL for decades has had very specific rules on its books against delivering blows above the shoulders, but they went ignored as the NFL and its licensees, especially television, determined to sell brutality instead of football. What better way to excite the young male demographic — as if it needs to be further excited or incited — instead of maintaining football as a sport.

Only after the news media, armed with medical data, began to examine the growing numbers of neurologically impaired ex-players, many of them young men, did the NFL feel enough that it began to act on its rules that had been in place for decades.

Having held up the likes of Ray Lewis with a, “Yeah! This is what the NFL’s all about!” and “Feel the Power” image campaigns, the NFL now fines and threatens the likes of Ray Lewis because indefensible, organized violence is what the NFL was, in fact, becoming all about.

Small wonder that a head-hunter such as Pittsburgh’s James Harrison couldn’t figure out why this year he was being fined for what made him the 2008 Defensive Player of the Year, plus a multi-millionaire.

Am I suggesting that Goodell begin acting less like a debt service manager and more like a warden, more like a commissioner and less like a CFO? Yeah. He should do it for the kids, starting with Cromartie’s.

Some playoff OT info

READER Yank Poleyeff has questions about the NFL’s new postseason overtime rules:

1. Receiving team fumbles opening kickoff, kicking team recovers. Does a field goal win the game?

NFL Answer: Yes. Receiving team had its one guaranteed possession.

2. First play from scrimmage in OT, pass intercepted then fumbled back to the other team. Does a field goal win the game?

NFL: Yes; again, each team had at least one possession.

3. Opening OT kickoff, kicking team attempts and recovers an onside kick.

Does a field goal on this possession win the game?

NFL: Yes, each side had an opportunity for at least one possession.

*

Why so many knocks on Mike Francesa for not having Jets players and coaches on, this season? What if he had? He would have used that interview time to tell them what he thinks.

More cold, April nights for Yanks fans

THIS season it will take fewer than three weeks to recognize that Major League Baseball’s great disregard for patrons is even greater than before.

We already have noted that the Mets are scheduled to play a home night game on Saturday, April 9 — but not a single early Saturday game for 18 consecutive weeks.

And now ESPN, which purchased do-what-you-please-to-us authority in the Bud Selig Era, has checked in.

How’s this:

Sunday night, April 10, Yankees at Red Sox.

Sunday night, April 17, Rangers at Yankees.

Freeze, you suckers, freeze! Then try to get home before 1:30 a.m., Monday. And for all the chummy interviews Selig gives when he stops by this TV booth or that one, not once is he asked the simplest of questions:

Do you think games changed to 8:05 Sunday-night starts played outdoors in the Northeast in April make sense to ticket-holders? Shouldn’t MLB look Westward for such games so early in the season? Or does TV money come first, every time, even if TV makes the most illogical and unreasonable demands on MLB’s patrons?

Hey, the same guy who allowed baseball to become economically reliant on steroids — then took credit for the cleanup committee — might be due to give an honest answer, something like:

“Whattya think, the team owners pay me $15 million per to do the right thing?”