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Albert Haynesworth, the Tennessee Titans lineman who discovered remorse only in the hours after he stomped a Dallas player in the face on Sunday, must go down, and he must go down hard. A month in the paycheck-free zone would likely do the trick (the NFL gave him five games). The league, after all, won't stand for this sort of violence.

And OK, everybody, that's it from here for today! We now return you to your regularly scheduled, league-sanctioned bloody mayhem.

You know: The stuff that happens before the whistle blows the play dead.

Without letting Haynesworth off the hook even for an instant, let's review the NFL's sport-specific sense of context. Sure, what Haynesworth did was despicable. He kicked a man in the face with his cleats while the player, Cowboys center Andre Gurode, was prone on the turf with his helmet removed. That's an unprotected shot to the mug. Gurode wound up with multiple stitches, a severely swollen eye and, sickeningly, a sense that he was lucky not to have had worse.

Still, if you want the inside-the-beltway read, Tony Siragusa might be a place to start. Siragusa, the former defensive lineman who was working the Titans-Cowboys game as a FOX Sports sideline reporter, called the stomping "cowardly" and an "embarrassment." He then explained that what Haynesworth did was, essentially, a matter not only of honor, but at least partly of … timing.

"I played the position for a long time, and that's not how you handle something like that," Siragusa said in comments published by The (Nashville) Tennessean. "If you want to take a shot at somebody, you do it during the play.

"If you want to hit somebody, you let him protect himself. If a guy is on the ground and his helmet's off -- that's inexcusable."

Good. All clear? Albert Haynesworth needed to get his dirty work done during the scrum, not after it. During is fine. After? That's suspension time.

Again, none of this diminishes the fact that Haynesworth went after a player who wasn't even wearing his helmet. The League will no doubt seize upon that aspect of the offense, because it's the most heinous part. While an after-the-whistle assault is hardly unique to Haynesworth, not many players are videotaped going after an opponent who, no matter his size, might fairly be described as defenseless in the situation.

Still, the NFL, almost by definition, is a league full of dirty shots and low blows. You wonder why a film documentarian like Bud Greenspan hasn't turned his talents to a season along the interior lines of professional football; the result would be a remarkable pastiche of violence under cover.

The things players have told me they've attempted through the years? Well, the quick ones tried to jab their fingers through the face masks of their opponents, either to temporarily blur their vision or put them out of the game. Leg whips are, if not standard procedure, certainly common enough to be considered an occupational hazard. Bending a finger straight back in an attempt to break it is one way to go. The kick or punch to the crotch is generally effective, since so many pros hate to wear protective cups. Flying spit is just the cost of doing business, and you don't have to go Conrad Dobler on somebody to understand the value of a good bite now and then.

The clumsy ones are usually the ones who get caught -- those, or the certifiably knuckleheaded. All of which naturally brings us to Bill Romanowski, the admitted steroid user who, among other things cited in a 2005 lawsuit, kicked Arizona running back Larry Centers in the head, broke Kerry Collins' jaw, spit in J.J. Stokes' face and fractured the orbital bone of Raiders teammate Marcus Williams.

As the NFL has made perfectly clear, people like Romanowski are to be shunned, not embraced -- and certainly not celebrated. That would explain why Romo's career lasted only … well, 16 seasons, with four teams, through this suspension and that, through fines, lawsuits, the works.

Romanowski subsequently wrote a tell-all book that sold well, and appeared in the remake of "The Longest Yard" as the most feared prison guard in the story. During the film, he even got to pretend to spit on an opponent during a game. Fun!

This year, Romo was tapped to appear on the letterbox of "Blitz: The League," a game designed for Xbox 360 and PSP. His visage is alongside that of noted Hall of Fame bad boy Lawrence Taylor, who appeared on the cover of the debut version in 2005.

The game is not licensed by the NFL, which is surely repulsed by its images of violence and drug use by players. You can tell the fans hate all that, too: "Blitz" sold only about a million copies in its inaugural year. No room for the rough stuff in football.

Mark Kreidler's book, "Four Days to Glory: Wrestling With the Soul of the American Heartland," will be published by HarperCollins in January 2007 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com. A writer for the Sacramento Bee, he can be reached at mkreidler@sacbee.com.