1/11/05 12:00pm EST

After Minnesota's Randy Moss feigned mooning the fans at Green Bay's Lambaugh field on Sunday, the mass stampede to pile on the criticism and condemnation was on. Fox Sportscaster Joe Buck called Moss' actions a 'disgusting act' and lamented 'It's unfortunate we had it on our air live.' Newspapers around the country slammed Ross' actions as immature and an affront to morality, reminding us that there were 'children watching'. When I first started to hear about the incident (I didn't watch the game) I mistakenly thought that Moss hat actually mooned the crowd. The intensity of the reaction from the press was what I would expect if Moss had pulled down his pants and shown the cheeks of his buttocks to the fans in Wisconsin and on national television, not merely pantomimed the act.

Still, I took only a passing interest in the story. That is, until I saw a comment by Tony Dungy, a calm, man of few words who I immensely respect. Dungy serenely put the entire incident in context and offered some important history:

'It's not the kind of thing you want to see on national TV, but I understand what it was all about ... Anyone who has played in the NFC Central knows what that's about. The fans in Green Bay have a tradition in the parking lot after the game where they moon the visiting team's bus. It's kind of a unique sendoff.'

So, for apparently quite some time, the Green Bay Packers and the NFL have let the practice go on of Green Bay Fan's mooning and exposing themselves to departing visiting teams. This they thought was OK, but Moss pretending to do it is a problem. The Packers and the NFL, not to mention, inexplicably, the local police in Green Bay, refused to do anything to halt their fans engaging in this practice, and now show horrified indignance at Randy Moss. Give me a break.

The final icing on the cake was what Viking tight end Jermaine Wiggins and others had to say about how Moss and other Viking players were being treated by the fans during the game. 'You should have heard some of the things they said to him on the sideline ... They said a lot of bad things, things you shouldn't say to people.' Vikings Coach Mike Tice added to Wiggin's comments, 'I always felt that Green Bay fans had a tremendous amount of class. I didn't see that displayed particularly often yesterday, and some of the things I heard was unlike Green Bay fans. Maybe they weren't the normal season-ticket holders.' In fact, several Vikings players indicated that Moss received relentless and obscene taunting throughout the game.

As with the aftermath of the Detroit Pistons-Indiana Pacers melee, what we see is a situation where a sports franchise and league allowed an ugly scenario to materialize where fans are mistreating players, and/or have close access to players, the players react, the fans are let off easy or not addressed at all, and the players are subject to harsh recriminations. The NFL and NBA should be happy that to this day, nothing more severe has happened and take appropriate actions to make sure that fans cannot get at players (it is going to happen if things do not change in both leagues) and that fans who misbehave are swiftly and appropriately dealt with.

Before we deal with the players involved, perhaps we would do well to consider what would have took place if the fans involved in these incidents had instead been well behaved, and whose responsibility it is to ensure their behavior.