A lot of crazy stuff going on in the NFL today, starting with the reports that Al Davis might fire Lane Kiffin tomorrow regardless of how the Raiders did in Kansas City (they won 23-8…who knew?). We found out Darren McFadden might be the next Adrian Peterson after all, J.T. O’Sullivan became the first 49ers quarterback to throw for 300 yards in a game since Tim Rattay (easily the most disturbing stat of the day), and the Jacksonville Jaguars are the NFL’s version of Ohio State.

But I want to delve into an NFL storyline that dwarfs all those previously mentioned developments in both importance and cultural relevancy: the attack of the dreads.

I was watching the Jags/Bills game next door this morning (I have to imagine at least 1,000 Bay Area residents switched to DirecTV today after realizing that the only game available at 10 am was Raiders/Chiefs — if my neighbors didn’t have the NFL package I might have slept until 12:58 pm), and I couldn’t get over the amount of dreadlocked players there were.

I’m not an unfrozen caveman lawyer who doesn’t understand your “dreadlocks.” I know it’s a popular style right now among footballers, but I never realized until this morning how persavive it’s gotten. It’s not just the Jags and Bills, either. According to my calculations, 33% of all NFL receivers, 40% of running backs and 97.7% of defensive backs have long enough dreads to earn wall space in a UC Santa Cruz student’s bedroom.

Remember when it was a big deal that the Packers were starting two corners (Al Harris and Mike McKenzie) with dreads? And Ricky Williams probably bought himself about 40 more random drug tests a year when he decided to let his dreads get even longer after college. Now the Niners even have a white guy with dreads. I don’t want to sound racist here (always nice when you have to preface something with those seven words), but I just can’t get over Zak Keasey, the dirty-blond dreadlocked fullback. For a black guy, dreadlocks can mean almost anything: Rastafarian, stoner, college professor, rapper, commercial actor, couple’s counselor or Sal Masakela. As a former student at both UCSC and Humboldt State (which makes me a certified expert in white dreadology, even though I’ve never myself been a practicing white dreader), every white guy with dreads was either a protest-loving vegan hacky-sacker, a glass blower trying to rustle up enough money to afford that Volkswagen bus they saw in Autotrader, a poseur trying to dip into the pool of white chicks with dreads, or somebody who spends every single waking hour trying to scheme new and creative methods of getting intoxicated using only household ingredients and butter. Not fullbacks who dabble in punt coverage.

Now every position in the league has a guy with dreads hanging underneath the back of their helmet except three: quarterback, kicker and punter. What are the odds that the wildly popular trend of making your hair look like thick ropes of dirty hair infiltrates these positions, that so far have shunned Marley and all he stands for? Let’s check dat list, brah…bumbleclot!

Quarterback
Probably the most volatile position if mixed with dreadlocks — any quarterback who decided to go into a season looking like Manny Ramirez would have his decision making skills questioned no matter what he did. Michael Vick decided to play the position with braids, and even that was barely tolerated before the dog fighting ordeal. And if it was a white quarterback with dreads, people would wonder if and how Marv Marinovich was involved.

However, QB’s from Joe Namath (panty hose) to Jim McMahon (headbands decorated with permanent marker paired with wraparound shades) to Kyle Orton (neckbeard) have shown that quarterbacks aren’t afraid to make a splash by how they look. In the 1980’s you weren’t a real quarterback if people couldn’t see some mullet when your helmet was on. Will we see an all-dreads backfield one day? It isn’t out of the question.
Odds of seeing a quarterback with dreads: 10 to 1

Kicker
Kickers are often little, fearful of contact and foreign. Wait, that’s wrong. There used to be tons of foreign kickers in the league, and they usually traveled in packs. The Gramatica and Zendejas brothers were like the kicking version of the catching Molinas. Now most kickers look like prep school kids who decided to keep kicking after college to rebel against their lawyer fathers. But Sebastian Janikowski’s a kicker, so we know that not all kickers are afraid of being linked to potential drug use. So it could happen.
Odds of seeing a kicker with dreads: 100 to 1.

Punter
Punters are boring. Well, except for Todd Sauerbrun, but that’s because he’s done more roids than Usain Bolt, Big Brown and Debbie Clemens put together. The rest of them are all clean-cut, conservative guys. Probably because punting is the most practical position in sports. It’s the one position that says, “No, don’t go for it. What if you end up with bad field position? Play it safe and use me!”

Punters. They’re all probably Republicans who drive with their hands at ten and two all the time and put their turn signal on two blocks before making a turn. I can’t even imagine punters listening to music, let alone trying to look like Peter Tosh (Side note: the worst dreads surprisingly aren‘t dirty ones. Even me, somebody who‘s been in a philosophy class where the guy in front of me‘s filthy dreads rested on my notebook knows: the worst dreads are fake ones. Who has worn fake dreads, you ask? Adam Duritz of Counting Crows and Chris Kirkpatrick of ‘N Sync. Case closed.).
Odds of seeing a punter with dreads: 1,000,000,000,000,000 to 1

No matter what you think about them, dreadlocks have officially taken over the NFL, making the league even hyphier than the NBA, which is still reeling from the cornrow epidemic of the late 1990’s. It was a big deal when Williams was tackled by his locks twice in 2003, but the NFL ruled it wasn’t against the rules (I’m sure the league is as happy about the proliferation of dreads as they are about Chad Ocho Cinco’s new last name). Now the hairstyle is as commonplace in football as ACL tears and weapons charges. As you can probably tell I’m already over this trend…wake me when the jheri curl comes back.

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3. The Top Ten reasons why I hate college football
4. Old People: Good for Baseball, Bad for Football
5. 49ers were better when special teams was worse