Ray Lewis is one heck of a linebacker.

He's not much of a publicist for the National Football League, though, and if anything, he doesn't think much of his league's fan base.

In an ESPN interview last week, Lewis warned of the possible ramifications if the current lockout wipes out this fall's NFL season.

"Do this research if we don't have a season -- watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up, if you take away our game," Lewis said.

"There's too many people that live through us, people live through us. Yeah, walk in the streets, the way I walk the streets, and I'm not talking about the people you see all the time."

I didn't know the keeper of peace in the United States was the NFL, and that if it is taken away, all pandemonium breaks loose.

Lewis said, "Do this research." It's got to be tough compare crime rates with and without NFL games behind held. But if crime rates in fact are higher when games aren't being held, is it a reasonable correlation to be able to factually say, "If there are no NFL games, crime rates pick up."

The statement doesn't say much about the NFL fan base if Lewis is right. Basically what he is alleging is NFL fans are so shallow that if games are not played and the season is wiped out, the only reasonable thing for those fans to do is to steal, rob, pillage and plunder.

Oh yeah?

If Lewis is trying to force the owners to settle this contract dispute, he needs to find another way to do it. This idea of his is pure lunacy.

Lewis does have a point. If the NFL season is wiped out or abbreviated because of this lockout, the league's fans are going to have to find something else to do with their time on Sunday afternoon.

To think there is research out there that suggests the fans are immediately going to turn to a life of crime to fill that time is idiotic.

- John Kampf