The NFL would like you to think that everything is hunky-dory since the labor strife ended.

Well, it’s not.

Sure, it’s still the best professional sport on the planet. I’m sure sports fans in Europe will claim soccer is the chief sport.

But here in the United States, there is little doubt about what sport rules.

Want proof? The preseason game between the Steelers and Eagles drew 8.6 million viewers.

Us yinzers like our football, n’at.

The San Diego-Dallas Sunday night game on NBC drew 10.7 million viewers — the top-rated show of the week.

This is preseason, folks. Twice as many people tuned in for a meaningless second preseason game as people who watched the Republican Presidential debate two weeks ago.

I guess Byron Leftwich and Mike Kafka are more interesting than Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum.

There are cracks, though, in the golden egg that is the National Football League.

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Fan violence. Anyone who saw the flailing arms and roundhouse punches thrown in the crowd during the preseason game between San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders over the weekend at Candlestick Park will probably think, “Well, that’s just a 49ers-Raiders thing.”After all, Raiders’ fans already have a rep. They dress like castoffs from the set of the show “Sons of Anarchy” or Darth Vader wannabes.But what happened there is just an extreme example of what probably happens in every NFL stadium during the season.I have witnessed my share of fisticuffs and shenanigans going to NFL stadiums over the years.Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo is notorious for fights. I was at a Raiders-Bills game there and saw no less than a dozen brawls.I also saw women wearing bikinis in December, so it wasn’t all bad.•

Lord Goodell. Who made this guy the Grand Poobah?Well, the owners did. And the players have tried to fight back, but with little success.Roger Goodell simply wields too much power.I miss Paul Tagliabue.•

Kickoffs from the 35. This is the dumbest thing I have heard since Edmund Nelson saying, well, anything.What makes this rule stink worse than the now departed Limus Sweed is the fact it impacts some teams more than others.Have a great kickoff return man? Sorry. His job is going to consist of fielding the ball five yards deep in the end zone and taking a knee.Have a bad kick coverage team? Well, you’re in luck. Your 10 guys (and the kicker, I guess) get to jog down field and then call it a play.That’s so exciting for the fans, too. Why not just skip the kickoff all together and start every possession at the 20.Fans can fight more in the stands that way.Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.