WELCOME, again, to the Idiots’ Picnic. The NFL’s otherwise credible sergeant at arms, Gene Washington, on ESPN during the week, dismissed as untrue the fact that the NFL punishes players for the same misconduct used to market the league in NFL-licensed products.

Blame parents! Blame society! Those helmet hits, the spearing, the taunting, the “No-flags-included!” brutality that predominate the annual come-ons and content of video games – “NFL Blitz,” “Prime Time NFL,” “NFL 2K3” – are just products of fertile imaginations.

But how else do you compete with “Grand Theft Auto,” sales of which have doubled since its second edition?

Washington might’ve said, “Yeah, we never should’ve started doing that, and now we oughta stop.” He didn’t even have to use the phrase, “greed-stricken” or “Anything for a buck.” He could’ve even said something vague and non-committal, such as, “The league always has to examine its role in all such matters.”

Instead, he denied the undeniable. Pathetic.

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As Sporting News Radio, 620 AM here, grows more scam-infested, it grows more unlistenable – at least to those who don’t regard themselves as easy prey for rip-off artists.

Not only does WSNR sell full blocks of air-time to scamdicappers and sports collectibles charlatans, it endlessly advertises those shows, plus it frequently runs the ads of other scamdicappers, all of whom know the winners of upcoming NFL games (have your credit card numbers ready).

WSNR has become so pervaded by smoke-in-a-bucket peddlers that an FCC or FTC investigator, just listening on the way to work, would have enough evidence to threaten the station’s license.

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As you watch the NFL’s replay rule in operation today, try to remember that its original intent – to reverse egregiously incorrect calls – has been lost to the search for microscopic evidence to reverse calls that few would’ve found fault with prior to the rule. While the game stops dead.

And it’s most common use, by NFL replay officials as well as coaches, is as a little-to-lose crap-shoot. While the games stop dead.

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The biggest problem with the media when addressing football is that they’ll watch an entire game, then forget or ignore what they saw and explain the game off of a stat sheet devoid of even minimal context.

Or they’ll cite the supernatural, like a team’s losing record in domes or in Green Bay when it’s below 36 degrees, as if playing on the road, often against good teams, explains nothing.

MSG’s Mike Crispino and John Gianonne last week sat in the studio and looked, along with us, at video of Santana Moss’ TD punt return against the Chargers. They noted, as the clip aired, that the Chargers missed six tackles. Good use of video, good stuff.

And then, when the clip ended and a shot of Jets’ special teams coach Mike Westhoff appeared, they ignored what they’d just shown and gave Westhoff full credit. Westhoff’s special teams have been exceptionally good, but hadn’t Crispino and Gianonne just shown and explained the TD as a result of missed tackles?

Memo to ABC: Those who care know by now that John Madden’s in the Monday Night Football booth. Excessive cut-aways from the field just to see Madden speaking – often uncomfortably – from the booth, look as obviously forced as they obviously are.

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Not every attempt to extort money from fans is successful. The Raiders, prior to last week’s home game against the cross-Bay rival Niners, had made tickets to that game available only within the purchase of a four-game package. But after that fleecing was largely rejected, the Raiders sold the tickets on an individual-game basis.

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Art Howe is such a kindly soul that he has already called Keith Hernandez to tell him that there’s no need to apologize.