Chad Johnson is ready to go to war with the NFL over his right to tweet during games.  At least that’s the impression he’s giving with some of his comments in response to the league’s proclamation that any one caught using Twitter from the sidelines will meet with severe punishment.

“Damn NFL and these rules,” Johnson tweeted after finding out the league’s position on Twitter.  “I am going by my own set of rules, I ain’t hurting nobody or getting in trouble, I am putting my foot down!!”

Two exclamation points means he’s serious.

Unfortunately so is the NFL, which has amply demonstrated that it is not shy about fining Chad, or any other player who transgresses against its image of the league as a legion of robot warriors bashing each other to bits for the amusement of the masses and the financial enrichment of old white men who, if they’d lived two hundred years ago, would’ve enriched themselves by slapping people like Chad Johnson in irons and making them pick cotton.

Well, okay, maybe bringing slavery into this is a little over-the-top.  There’s no need to go all Warren Sapp.

Actually, it’s funny that I should mention Warren Sapp, since he’s on Twitter too, under the  screen name QBkilla.  Warren doesn’t have to worry about the NFL’s Twitter ban since Warren is now in the booth being gregarious and controversial, like a more-famous Tony Siragusa.

Warren probably would’ve wanted to tweet from the sidelines back in his playing days, just like Chad does.  Guys like Chad and Warren are all about having fun and reaching out to the fans…and if all this merriment and being in touch with the folks who pay the bills lead to a guy’s name becoming more well-known, that’s just icing on the cake.

Not that I’m suggesting Chad is only doing this for the publicity.  Well, okay, that is what I’m suggesting.  But, really, what is so wrong with that?  Isn’t the NFL a product, and isn’t selling product what it’s supposed to be all about?  And don’t guys like Chad help sell the product, especially to people who care more about silly antics than actual football?

Clearly, the NFL is not averse to shilling itself, nor does it have a problem with using its players to achieve its promotional ends.  What it does object to is the players going about these activities in ways that are not directly controlled by the league itself.  The NFL’s problem with tweeting is that tweeting is an individualized activity, an expression of one person’s views, and that kind of thing is liable to lead to controversy, embarrassment and possibly even scandal.

Chad Johnson himself has already demonstrated the dangers of tweeting without thinking:  in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death he posted that he felt like it was 9/11 all over again, then had to backpedal after realizing how easy it would be for people to take this the wrong way.  Stuff like this is exactly what the NFL has in mind when it says it doesn’t want its players posting during games.  It would probably extend the ban to include all tweeting all the time, but of course that would be outrageously dictatorial, and everyone knows the NFL is only somewhat dictatorial.

Of course everybody also knows that, in the end, the NFL is going to win, and Chad Johnson is going to have to give up his campaign to bring Twitter to the sidelines.  This is unfortunate; I was looking forward to seeing what kind of nonsense Ochocinco would beam forth from his Blackberry while stewing on the bench after the inevitable bad play.  “Coach Lewis doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground,” perhaps, or “Carson Palmer couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.”  Oh, it would’ve been beautiful.  But, like so many beautiful things, it was destined to wither and die on the vine before ever blooming full.