Are you ready for some BOOBIES?!

Oh, the drama.

An ABC-TV cross-promotion on "Monday Night Football" for the new series "Desperate Housewives" worked a little too well, so the network apologized all over itself yesterday.

ABC's intro to Eagles-Cowboys featured a naked Nicollette Sheridan, one of the "Housewives," jumping into the arms of Philly receiver Terrell Owens. Viewers and the NFL then jumped all over the network.

"We have heard from many of our viewers about the 'MNF' opening segment and we agree that the placement was inappropriate," ABC said in a statement.

The NFL called the intro "inappropriate and unsuitable for our 'Monday Night Football' audience."

Here we go again, with the complaints about nudity/sexual suggestiveness adjacent to football coverage. "Oh nooo, think of the children! They will be scarred for LIFE after seeing Nicolette Sheridan's NAKED BACK!" or something. (And don't forget the underexplored "white woman jumping into the arms of a black man" factor, which, in our backward-thinking nation, surely caused at least a portion of the complaints.)

This whole situation astounds me, considering the context: the three-hour orgy of violence known as Monday Night Football. Don't get me wrong, I love football. I even officiate at the high school level. But let's face it: it's an extremely violent sport. When we work games, we concentrate on safety issues in an effort to prevent players from incurring serious injuries. It's an uphill battle, because football fans tend glorify the big hits and revel in the roughness.

MNF has been the scene of some gruesome sights. The one I remember like a recurring nightmare was Napoleon McCallum's horrific knee injury during the first Monday night game of the season in 1994. I even remember where I was when I saw this -- in my freshman dorm room, watching with hallmates, who were similarly disturbed.

With the Raiders playing the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park on Monday Night Football, McCallum took a handoff and ...

"I got the ball and just tried to run through the middle, and the whole line was stopped up," McCallum recalls. "There was a big pile and I tried to go forward, and (49ers linebacker) Ken Norton had my shoulders and he was trying to pull me back. I'm pushing forward, and he's pulling me back and something gave, and that was my knee."

It was a gruesome sight, and a worldwide audience witnessed it over and over on instant replay: McCallum's left knee had been contorted so badly that his lower leg looked to be dangling by a thread. Blood was quite visible.

EWWWW. It's 10 years later and I can't even think about that scene without getting a little queasy. And, of course, the producers kept showing the replay over and over and over... and I kept yelling, "Stop, stop, STOP! I no longer want to see that man's foot touching his own stomach!" (I'm just grateful McCallum's still able to walk, because it really looked like he was going to lose a leg.)

Even more famous is the hit Lawrence Taylor put on Joe Theismann in 1985, breaking Theismann's leg in two places, sending him to the hospital and ending his career. And, again, ABC kept replaying it and replaying it until the nation collectively vomited.

Now, you can argue that violence isn't the main reason we love football, and that everyone involved is properly shocked and somber when a player is injured. But then I would have to point you to this website, where you can buy an autographed photo of Lawrence Taylor, taken right as he's about to break Theisman's leg into three pieces. We, quite simply, glorify the violence.

And, we're willing to let our kids watch players' legs get separated from their bodies, but if the network shows a topless woman from the back... NOW the children watching are scarred for life? There's nothing harmful about boobies, people. Boobies never broke anyone's leg in two. Boobies never bent anyone's knee 45 degrees in the wrong direction. (Well, not that I'm aware of.)

Yes, I realize I live in a country where gay marriage is a hotter social issue than the thousands of people who have died in Iraq, and that this is just symptomatic of that same bizarre mode of thinking. We, as a nation, fear sex and love violence. And I just don't get it. Why isn't it the other way around? It should be the other way around.

(Desperate Housewives, by the way: great show. Highly recommended. We watch it every week with our lawyer friend "Staci".)