There was a little controversy last weekend during the NCAA Tournament when two NFL stadiums — Ford Field in Detroit and Reliant Stadium in Houston — made their debuts as basketball venues. Both sites required raised floors that separated the action from the benches, hence the minor controversy. The raised floor was OK in the old University of Minnesota arena, but some critics howled that it wasn’t OK in the NCAA Tournament.

In the economic reality of sports today, giant NFL stadiums, sometimes publicly financed, have to double as something else. Basketball games, rock concerts and other events — Lambeau Field hosted an outdoor University of Wisconsin hockey game a couple years ago — are just a fact of life at NFL stadiums. At least baseball had the foresight to realize their stadiums don’t make good football venues and vice versa. Hopefully, when the next wave of NFL stadiums are built with multitasking in mind, the league, teams and architects will remember that the buildings are football venues first. The raised floor might have been obnoxious to some basketball fans, but bad sight lines will be more annoying for an NFL fan.

The NFL announced its marquee games for the 2008 opening weekend, and it’s not exactly must-see viewing.

The season will open with the Giants hosting the Redskins — I’ll admit, that’s a decent matchup. The first Sunday night game will have Indianapolis hosting Chicago at the Colts’ new stadium. This would have been a great game a year ago, but not after the Bears’ collapse in 2007, couldn’t the NFL tried scheduling a division rival? Finally, on Monday night, ESPN will air two games again, Green Bay vs. Minnesota in the Packers’ first game without Brett Favre, and Oakland vs. Denver. The Packer game is intriguing, the Raiders game not so much.

The rest of the 2008 schedule hasn’t been announced, hopefully prime-time will be more prime.

The NFL will be considering several rule changes today, including the Troy Polamalu/Al Harris hair proposal, but the one that should be a no-brainer is the use of instant replay on field goals.

Think back to the Browns-Ravens game last season where Cleveland almost lost because of the incredible bouncing field goal. Luckily for the Browns, the officials got the call right, but it demonstrated the need for allowing instant replay on anything headed for the uprights. Since field goals often decide games, the NFL must ensure those games are decided correctly.

Jason Taylor is performing on “Dancing With the Stars” and millions of women are happy. Including my wife.

I really don’t have an opinion on this other than Taylor better not tear an ACL during a mambo. Anything to improve the Dolphins’ image has to help, and Bill Parcells seems cool with it, so more power to Taylor to be an active NFL player and an active dancer. Not that I was purposely watching the show … but Taylor can hold his own as a dancer, though the longer he lasts on the show, you wonder how it will cut into his offseason training, somewhat like NBA players coming back from the Olympics tired.

On Tuesday’s awards episode, my wife got the NFL hot-guy bonus when Tony Gonzalez was in the audience in addition to Taylor on stage. Maybe this isn’t a good idea …

The Cowboys are reportedly interesting in acquiring troubled Titans cornerback Pacman Jones and have increased their offer in this pursuit. Jones wants to get his career going, and Dallas is a good place — he won’t be the biggest ego on the team, and Jerry Jones won’t tolerate any shenanigans. The Cowboys are being smart, too, trying to pull off the trade while renegotiating Adam’s contract to a one-year deal. Hopefully Jones will make a good impression in that one year, and more importantly, stay out of trouble. If he can, he’ll discover what a success he can be in Dallas. If he can’t, well, there’s always the Raiders.

The NFL is living up to its No Fun League moniker once again as it considers forbidding players from letting long hair hang below their names on the back of their jerseys.

I guess this proposal, which I’ll dub the Troy Polamalu rule, is supposed to address potential personal fouls and violence by long-haired players getting their hair pulled during or after tackles. But it’s legal to pull someone down by his hair. The example that’s been thrown around about Larry Johnson getting hit with a personal foul for pulling Polamalu’s hair was after the play was over, which is unsportsmanlike conduct akin to pulling someone’s face mask after the whistle.

The NFL has bigger issues than hair, like teams videotaping each other’s practice and stars getting jailed. If a player wants to wear his hair long, let him accept the risks of being tackled by it. It seems this is another example of the league wanting to remove even more individual style from its employees. The NFL needs to lighten up.

Cincinnati receiver Chad Johnson is making his point that he wants to be traded by skipping the Bengals’ voluntary workouts this week.

OK, Chad, you made your point. The Bengals aren’t going to trade you. When the mandatory minicamps come around, get back to work.

Many people don’t like Chad Johnson and his ego, but I’ve always found him entertaining, and he’s always backed up his ego with good play. With this stunt, he’s risking lumping himself in with Terrell Owens as selfish malcontents.

Get over yourself, Chad. Besides, if you did get traded and didn’t end up with the same number, you risk having to change your nickname to Ocho Ocho. That’s just too silly.

Veteran kicker Jason Elam left the Broncos for Atlanta last week, and I believe his fantasy value went with him.

Elam has been one of the most consistent kickers over the last 15 years, and the Falcons decided to shell out some coin for a top-tier K rather than go back to Morten Andersen, who might be 10 years older than Elam, for a reliable veteran option.

But Elam is going from a team that scored points to one with a severely struggling offense. Though he will be kicking in a dome rather than Denver (less bad weather, but possibly less 50-yarders in the lower altitude), he is not going to be getting as close to the end zone. For this reason, Elam should not be a top-10 fantasy kicker come next fall. If your league requires two kickers, he’s a solid second option, but unless the Falcons suddenly improve significantly, expect 10-12 kickers to put up better numbers than him in 2008.

I read an item in Sports Illustrated that Giants receiver David Tyree signed with a publisher to write a book, due out Sept. 2. Now I’m not dismissing anyone’s desire to write — more power to Tyree to pen his life story — but is there that much demand to read about him? Seriously, how many people knew of Tyree before he caught that pass on his helmet in the Super Bowl? If his life has been otherwise uneventful, can we expect a few chapters on the catch itself?

Granted, die-hard fans like to read about their favorite athletes. My wife’s favorite player is Bill Bates, and when his book was published, she read it in three hours, then a second time by the next day. But Bates was in the midst of a solid, against-all-odds career. Tyree has just one impressive catch.

Earlier this month, punter Sean Landeta made his retirement official. Though Landeta hadn’t played much the last few years, the day he picked to announce he retiring was significant — it was the 25th anniversary of the debut of the United States Football League. And Landeta was the last remaining USFL player still active in the NFL.

Let the memories of the USFL begin. In Chicago, the Blitz at first were a big deal. The Bears were coming off a couple miserable seasons, NFL fans were still a little bitter about the strike, and the arrival of baseball season wasn’t exactly a hopeful thing in Chicago. Plus, the Blitz were somewhat good that first season, going 12-6 in their inaugural season under coach George Allen. (Thanks to thisistheusfl.com for more useful — get it, useful, USFL! — information on the league, the site is really amazing) They would lose in overtime in the playoffs (prompting one newspaper columnist to proclaim the Blitz fit right in with Chicago sports teams), then literally trade franchises with the Arizona Wranglers for their second season.

Here’s what I remember about that second Blitz season — nothing. The USFL was dying, and combine that with sudden baseball fever in Chicago and the Bears beginning to turn things around in 1983, and the Blitz were all but done. The league folded by 1986, and no serious attempt to start or expand an alternate pro football league in this country has succeeded (the Arena League doesn’t count).

The USFL did produce a few quality future NFL players, including Reggie White, Jim Kelly, Herschel Walker and Sam Mills. And one punter who lasted until this month — Sean Landeta.