Print and Go Back NFL [Print without images]  Thursday, December
6, 2012 NFL's mixed messages  By Howard Bryant  Vince
Wilfork/NFL 60/Brandon Browner There's a gap between the NFL's
public messaging and its actions.  The lines delineating the
NFL's greatest battleground can be seen through the eyes of the
children, earnest and in high definition, during every
broadcast, every Sunday, all of them pawns. There is the little
black girl in the purple Sunday dress endearingly interviewing
Ray Lewis. There is the grateful sandy-blond boy with his mom in
front of the minivan thanking his local coaches for making
football safe and important. There's the kid with the bowl cut,
limbering his arm, talking precocious smack to Cam Newton,
dreaming to be him.  The kids are the cute but obvious props of
a high-powered public relations attempt to soften the edges of a
deadly game, providing snippets of humanity in between the
Saints-49ers game two weeks ago, where 49ers Kyle Williams and
Kendall Hunter were driven away on th