The NFL is still the king - Ingles

Let there be no doubt the NFL is king of the American experience, crushing the formidable likes of bacon, Apple and Facebook.

Who else besides the king could shove a no-hitter to the back pages, hide the firing of a college football coach two weeks before the first workout, obscure that the Los Angeles Dodgers are bankrupt and convince Tiger Woods it is safe to sneak back onto the golf course?

What other sports league could attract at least as much attention as politicians locked in a national economic stalemate, hurtling down the road to catastrophe?

All those years we thought we understood the true power of the almighty NFL. Now we know. We've spent the past week seeing it up close.

Our greatest sports league flexed its muscles and flattened so-called contenders as easily as acknowledged pretenders. With a flurry of free-agent activity and stunning trades, the NFL, like the lost love that haunts us, came through our collective doorway and made us forget whatever we were doing while it was gone.

Yes, it had abandoned us. No, we don't remember that.

Or maybe we're suckers for a league so highly skilled and bewitching that it can brainwash away not only the postseason disintegration of LeBron James but also any residual bitterness in the wake of an acrimonious 19-week labor war during which at least 22 players were arrested.

Who can remain furious over the lockout when laconic Patriots coach Bill Belichick is cozying up to self-promoting motormouth Chad Ochocinco and the beastly enigma that is Albert Haynesworth? Those two trades alarmed the league, flipped its fans and created fascinating story lines.

Meanwhile, cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, the most coveted of free agents, scattered vapor trails of speculation all over the land. He was going to Houston, where he was the missing element, or maybe to the New York Jets to form a dream partnership with cornerback Darrelle Revis. He was being courted by Dallas, where the irresistible Jerry Jones, all charm and drawl, was waving millions.

Even San Francisco couldn't be dismissed. Nnamdi had spent 12 years in the Bay Area, with Cal and the Raiders, and the 49ers had dumped pricey corner Nate Clements.

And Nnamdi landed in "... Philadelphia?

The usually deliberate Eagles spent as if their money had a time limit. Asomugha joined fellow high-profile corner Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, acquired in the trade that sent quarterback Kevin Kolb to Arizona. Philadelphia also added potent defensive linemen Jason Babin and Cullen Jenkins. To replace Kolb, the Eagles signed Vince Young, ditched by Tennessee after five years during which he alternately sulked or mystified or scintillated.

Young couldn't resist comparing Philly's five-day spree to that of the NBA Miami Heat a year ago.

The NBA had its Summer of LeBron, nearly two months during which everyone interested in hoops wondered and hypothesized -- until James went on national TV to announce he was "taking my talents to South Beach."

Cleveland, near James' hometown of Akron and where he spent the first seven years of his career, responded to this perceived desertion with a period of civil unrest, burning LeBron jerseys and suddenly hating anything connected with James.

Such raw emotion was confined mostly to Cleveland. Miami's reaction was joy.

And that was the reaction in Miami again, after the Dolphins waded into the post-lockout carnival and grabbed former Saints star Reggie Bush, who could be the most electrifying runner in South Florida since Mercury Morris.

Bush's arrival in Miami, like the trade of quarterback Donovan McNabb from Washington to Minnesota or the big-money signing of wideout Sidney Rice by Seattle, was one episode in the NFL's week of marvelous madness, when talent flew like whiskers at a barber shop.

Though the Bay Area was one of the few pockets of relative silence, with the 49ers and Raiders maintaining low profiles, observing the furor and tumult elsewhere, the NFL did a fabulous job of captivating us. Fans are stupefied, fantasy team owners are delirious and actual league owners are grinning beside the bank vault.

Yet there is more to come. Receivers Plaxico Burress, Braylon Edwards and Randy Moss are available, with Edwards rumored as coming to Oakland. Will the Raiders lose tight end Zach Miller? Can they succeed without their most consistent receiver?

The NFL excels at exploiting itself, compelling us to watch what it wants us to see. This week's show was the juiciest in the post-merger era.

The league could have been its condescending self and taken fans for granted, knowing they'd come back -- and they would have. Instead, it delivered hours of breathless theater.

We're once again engaged, prisoners under the spell of the king. This article was written by Monte Poole and appeared in The Contra Costa Times.