By Nick Canepa

The San Diego Union-Tribune

For nearly a century, the National Football League has been about as politically correct as 19th Century New York dock workers. Now it’s trying to turn Satan into Sebastian, the patron saint of athletics.

I refuse to believe it can become PC overnight. I don’t think real football can get to full PC in over a thousand years —and it may do itself irreparable harm just trying, let alone succeed at it.

It’s a bad try. Wealthy, hypocritical knuckleheads now running scared are trying to force-feed musclemen mystery meat that can’t be swallowed.

If the unlikely day comes when gamblers decide the NFL isn’t worth betting on anymore, The League, the most successful and profitable sporting society in history, is going to rule itself out of business.

Not tomorrow. Not the day after. But if it becomes unwatchable, unmanageable, totally unpredictable, even the wagerers are going to get scared away by sudden ambiguity caused by insane rules changes.

This one’s called the helmet rule. You know, a player can’t lower his helmet, I suppose not even when he’s putting it on in the locker room. And that goes for everybody.

It’s a rule written in invisible ink. There is no rule, really. Following it is like trying to shadow the wind.

How long are these gamblers going to put their money down only to watch it flushed away over a rule that is going to be impossible to interpret and enforce with any consistency?

During the Judases-Cardinals NFL exhibition opener, J’s receiver Geremy Davis caught a pass over the middle and ran a ways before being smacked to the surface by safety Travell Dixon.

Rockne couldn’t have coached a better tackle, to Davis’ shoulder area.

The helmet rule was invoked. It happened again on another play. Bad call. As it was, the zebras were stampeding out of control, throwing enough flags to hang at the United Nations —26 for 265 yards.

It was terribly unattractive, even for an exhibition game, which can’t help but be unattractive.

The NFL is Wallenda-ing here, walking a tightrope with some huge holes in the net below. It can’t win with this rule. They are asking for the unworkable.

It can’t be officiated, it can’t be played and it can’t be coached. They are asking fish, used to swimming all their lives, to start walking.

Troika.

It reminds me of the college targeting rule, which not only is idiotic, but also a game-stopper. It should take an awful lot for a player to get ejected from a football game, there being so few of them.

“What I worry about,” says Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy, “is a guy getting ejected when you couldn’t help it at all.”

So much of football is instinct, all about hair-trigger response, playing without thought. How can you coach/instruct a player to do something he’s incapable of doing —never had to do —on the fly?

“I’ve talked to a lot of coaches, a mixture of old and guys doing it now, and they obviously think it’s difficult to learn, because so much of the game is contact,” says former San Diego State and USC head coach Ted Tollner, who also spent 14 years as an NFL assistant and coordinator. “There’s no question it does diminish players’ ability to hit people.”

Tollner agrees there are three degrees of difficulty —for players, coaches and officials.

“No. 1, it will be difficult for the players, because they play full-speed with high intensity and suddenly, at the last minute, they’re going to have to tell themselves, ‘What do I do?’ ” Tollner says. “It has to make them more tentative. How hard do you think it is for a player to pull out of a play at the end?”

I’m not a player and don’t know anything, but I if I want to watch Madden, I’ll get the video game.

The last thing a football player can be is tentative. Imagine a game with 22 kickers on the field at once? Even before they tried this nonsense, the game had gone far too soft.

Much like they’ve done with the indecipherable catch rule, not to mention their bumbling of the Anthem issue, The League’s lawmakers are attempting to do the worst thing one can do in business —mess with its brand. New Coke didn’t work. Football is not badminton. Richard Sherman says it “will be flag football soon.”

As it is now, we’re captain of the Titanic. We can’t even see the iceberg’s tip. Wait until this costs a team a win. Wait until a great player gets tossed in a real game over muscle memory.

I’ve been around thousands of football players in my time. These are magnificent athletic machines. Defenders have been trained to hunt since childhood. This rule is trying to make people something they’re not and may never be.

The owners should know better. The players are not you and me. They are from another human category.

“It has to be frustrating for the players and coaches,” Tollner continues. “You look at what appears to be a clean tackle and they throw a flag.

“There are contradictions. It’s very difficult and I don’t have an answer. I don’t coach it anymore.”

How can anybody coach what can’t be taught?

Take verbs and every type of noun away from Dickens and he couldn’t write Charles.