Fashion statement.

• Author: Schley, Stewart
• Position: SPORTS biz

BETWEEN THE ANNUAL PLAYER DRAFT IN April and the first kickoff of the first pre-season game in August, there is a rare period of Callow time in which the National Football League--despite its around-the-clock television channel and daily blog entries posted by teams and the occasional early--look profiles written by sports beat reporters--is relatively starved lion affection, conceding the sports spotlight briefly to the NBA and NHL playoffs, and the comparatively languid rhythms of the baseball season.

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This summer, however, that void has been filled to overflowing by Aaron Hernandez, a former marquee player for the New England Patriots who was charged with murdering a 27-year old acquaintance.

On the playing Field of public sentiment, Odin Lloyd's violent death is sadly, ironically and vet quite expectedly the afterthought here. The news coverage, the live radio commentary, the Twitter conversation, the water-cooler talk, was all instead about the grandiosity of the alleged crime, the sordidness of it, the celebrity element the caught-in-the-headlights, scandalous, implausible quality of the story that nobody, not the NFL, not the victim, not a star football player, would have ever wanted.

That the Hernandez tragedy created a crisis for the league and his team is undeniable. Swift and decisive actions taken by the Patriots management in light of Hernandez's arrest testify to the threat the events posed to the delicate relationship between team and fan. The day of the tight end's arrest the team released Hernandez from the roster. Two weeks later, team owner Robert Kraft, upon returning from a trip, held court with local beat reporters, insisting the team was unaware Hernandez had, let's say, unresolved anger issues. And in between, a cut-to-the-heart gesture by the Patriots: an invitation for fans to swap NFL-licensed jerseys adorned with the name Hernandez for new team apparel bearing the surname of another player (presumably one who will stay out of jail) for free.

It was this part of the breakup that I (bund riveting, sad and appropriate. A team hardly known for its subtlety had deftly identified and addressed, at least symbolically, the most confounding question of all to spring from the Hernandez affair and myriad other incidents in which players have been exposed as thugs: How do I preserve the separation of reality and fantasy that is part of being a fan? How do I love my...