Notion to regulate hair length more rigid than necessary

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The NFL is on its way to having major labor issues. Throw in the specter of Spygate hanging over the league's collective heads, putting the legacy of one Bill Belichick in peril, and you know things aren't as smooth as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell would like them to be.

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Those are both major issues.

Hair shouldn't be. Surprisingly, it is.

Or at least the Kansas City Chiefs are hoping it becomes one. The Chiefs have proposed to the league's competition committee that players should be forced to keep their hair from reaching the length where it covers up the name and number on the back of the jersey.

That doesn't mean cutting the hair necessarily -- that's not the rule proposed -- but it might be darn near impossible for a player like Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu to tuck the hair into his helmet on game day.

"What it is going to call for is not for the players to cut their hair, it means they have to keep their hair under their helmets," said Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay, who is co-chair of the league's competition committee.

The NFL owners will discuss the potential rules change here this week at their annual league meetings, but it might be tabled as an issue until May. There is still a lot of debate ahead.

Let me help them: Table it forever. It's a dumb idea, one that smells of elite, older, stodgy men telling their hip-hop era players what to do.

What's next? Outlawing tattoos? Who's going to pony up for the laser removal?

They took away the creative celebrations a few years ago and now this seems to be the stifle theme of the month.

Surprisingly, the head coaches I talked to here Monday were against the rule. They don't like it, but it's the owners who will have the votes.

Even a rigid coach like New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin, who once told a player with a Mohawk haircut to cut it and then cut him later that same day, isn't in favor of the rule change.

"How do you do that?" Coughlin said. "There doesn't seem to be a real reason to do it. How do you go back to that?"