Paranoia reigns in the NFL, where eating slop isn’t as costly as tweeting about it

Stop eating slop, win a Super Bowl

A lot of people in San Diego thought it might have been the inconsistent defense or the tendency to use LaDainian Tomlinson too much. Others blamed Norv Turner for the Chargers’ inability to win a Super Bowl.

Wrong. It was the slop being served at lunch time.

Charger fans found that out when Antonio Cromartie sent a tweet the other day saying “nasty food” might have played a part in stifling the team’s chance at greatness in recent years. Apparently he hurt the caterer’s feelings, because Turner pulled the star cornerback out of a meeting to tell him he was being fined $2,500 for, shall we say, spilling the beans.

If the Chargers weren’t so dead-faced serious, the decision to levy a fine over food would be hilarious. Actually, it still is.

But maybe there’s a bigger point than last week’s lasagna to ponder.

If Cromartie is complaining publicly about the grub, what’s next? What other secrets will he reveal, and at what cost?

Think of what might happen if other teams knew the Chargers’ showers weren’t hot enough, or that the offensive line had to lather up with soap bought at the dollar store?

Let that go, and soon they’ll be tweeting the playbook, 140 characters at a time.

There’s something so Nixonian about it all, the silly dance of NFL coaches and team officials in the never-ending effort to keep their team’s secrets. Paranoia strikes deep among the football elite, who seem to be spending an awful lot of time this preseason figuring out ways to thwart enemy spies and the enemy within.

Just how any of it will help Eli Manning get the New York Giants back to another Super Bowl or get Mike Singletary’s 49ers back to .500 is debatable. Everyone in the incestuous world of pro football already knows what everyone else is doing anyway, and the only real secrets are open secrets.

Control freaks that they are, though, nothing will stop these guys from trying.

So far this preseason, Twitter has emerged as public enemy No. 1 for most teams. Some have told their players not to tweet, and at least seven teams have banned fans and media at training camp practices from sending out any messages.

Not that any fans — or many in the media, for that matter — have any clue what is going on in those practices. Doesn’t matter. All it takes is one person realizing that a third-string offensive tackle is practicing with the starters to ruin an opening day surprise.

The paranoia doesn’t stop there. There are so many new restrictions around the league that fans must wonder if coaches are spending more time trying to plug leaks than fixing leaky defenses.

The Texans this week instituted a ban on filming or taking pictures of injured players during rehab, depriving all Houston fans of the chance to watch center Chris Myers get treatment for his high ankle sprain. It wasn’t quite clear why, but you might think a team that has never had a winning season might be more worried about other things.

In Indianapolis, the Colts demanded reporters leave their notebooks behind when they watch practice, lest they scribble something about who Peyton Manning is throwing the ball to. In Philadelphia, coach Andy Reid stopped talking about injuries because reporters violated an unwritten “pact” by daring to ask others on the team about an injury to linebacker Stewart Bradley.

Asked when he would resume talking, Reid said, “When I decide that people can abide by the rules, I’ll do that.”

The problem for coaches is not everybody follows their rules. Even if they did, coaches would make new ones anyway. That’s the nature of the beast in a business where you’re only as good as your last game and you’re convinced everyone around you is just waiting for the right time to stab you in the back.

It’s at its worst right now: Every team is unbeaten, and every coach believes his team has a shot at the Super Bowl. That’s especially true in San Diego, where Turner might have to win a ring to keep his job.

He’s not about to let some bad meatloaf get in the way.

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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for the Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org