Sunday, Aug. 16 (AM) – Who does the NFL think it’s kidding? The league sent out an edict last week warning teams about fighting – fighting with teammates, and fighting with players from other clubs. Those who violate that edict will be punished. End of story. That’s all well and good. To be sure, it is exactly what the league had to do from a public relations standpoint, lest its product turn into Wrestlemania. The league certainly doesn’t want one of the two teams in its biggest market of New York to ever again lose its starting quarterback for six to 10 weeks due to a punch delivered from a bottom-of-the-roster linebacker whose first name should be used in spelling bees. But in reality, the NFL warning teams about fighting is like cigarette companies putting a disclaimer on its packs and cartons that cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health. Of course the cigarette companies want you to puff away. If you have a craving for nicotine, they have a way for you to satisfy it. It’s a win-win. Smokers get what they want, and so do the cigarette companies in the form of increased profits. Likewise, fighting is what helped build the NFL into the multi-billion-dollar industry it is today. It’s a brutal game, which is exactly what the fans want, and what the league wants. If there was no brutality, no fighting, then the NFL would be less than what it is, and those league executives who were responsible for issuing the warning wouldn’t be earning quite the millions of dollars they are now. Fans – and players, coaches and the media as well – remember the fights years later, long after they’ve forgotten key plays in the games when they occurred. When former New York Giants running back running back Frank Gifford died recently, one of the first things that was recalled was the brutal hit he absorbed from fellow Pro Football Hall of Famer Chuck Bednarik of the Philadelphia Eagles in a 1960 game. More has been written about that hit, which, if delivered in today’s NFL, might have gotten Bednarik, a linebacker, suspended until about 2052, than about the entire 1960 season. People know all about the hit. What they’ve forgotten is that the Eagles won their last NFL title that season, and that the late-season win over the Giants was probably the biggest moment of the year. It’s the same for the Browns – and, for that matter, the Pittsburgh Steelers, too. Is there anyone in those two cities who doesn’t know the lore, chapter and verse, of Browns defensive end Joe “Turkey” Jones’ piling-driving hit on Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw in 1976 at Cleveland? No one remembers that the Browns won the game, 18-16. But about 10 years ago, Jones came back for a Browns game. As part of a video interview with the team’s website, he walked right to the spot on the field where the famous hit occurred (FirstEnergy Stadium is built on the exact footprint of Cleveland Stadium, with the field running the same way) and recalled, in detail, the play and everything that happened afterward. Jones says with a laugh that the play is all that is ever talked about when he gets together with former Steelers for charity golf tournaments. Former Cleveland left tackle Doug Dieken, in his 28th season as the color analyst on the Browns Radio Network, still talks about a game against the Steelers exactly 40 years ago, in 1975, again at Cleveland. Steelers defensive tackle “Mean” Joe Greene got mad at Browns right guard Bob McKay and kicked him in the … well, let’s just say a very sensitive part of his body, thus igniting an all-out, bench-clearing brawl between the two teams. “We had just signed Tom DeLeone,” Dieken said about the former Browns center. “Tom was standing on the sideline, and when the fight broke out, he immediately threw off the jacket he was wearing, ran full-speed right into the middle of the fight, found Mean Joe and really clocked him. I didn’t know much about Tom then, but when he did that, I thought to myself, ‘Hey, I kind of like this guy. He must be all right.’ ” Indeed, of all the things Dieken knows about DeLeone, now his close friend, that punch is what comes to mind first when he thinks about him. Browns head coach Mike Pettine said his team is “not going up there to have a pillow fight” when it practices Monday and Tuesday against Buffalo at the Bills’ training camp site in Rochester, N.Y. Pettine always wins the press conferences, and he certainly did so when he uttered that. These combined practices are always good for fights, whenever, wherever and with whomever. When the Houston Texans and Washington Redskins got together as camp began this year, the play was highlighted by a huge fight. As good as it was – and it was pretty good – it was nothing compared to what happened when head coach Bud Carson’s Browns practiced against Buddy Ryan’s Chicago Bears in London before the teams’ preseason-opening game there in 1989. Play had to be stopped after nearly every play to break up fights. Even Carson and Ryan exchanged angry words. Did we mention that Buddy’s son, Rex, is the new head coach of the Bills? Stay tuned for what occurs in Rochester. You can bet the NFL will, too, and would be secretly thrilled if a few punches – not pillows – were tossed about.