The National Football League has long been concerned about the potential involvement and influence of gangs.  Since gangs can potentially be involved in organized crime and since organized crime often entails gambling and since gamblers often are inclined to cozy up to athletes for inside information or to try to get said athletes to influence the outcome of games, it’s important for the NFL to ensure that no active gang members are in the sport.

There’s also a concern regarding the potential for significant violence, which arose with tragic consequences in connection with the murder of Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams, who presumably was killed after a confrontation with gang members.

It would be naive to assume that no gang members currently are, or have been, in the NFL.  In the past, however, not much was done to prevent gang signs from being flashed during games.

But that’s changing, according to Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times.  A point of emphasis for the 2008 season will be searching for evidence of gang signs being displayed by players who score touchdowns or otherwise celebrate (such as, for example, running the football for positive yardage in a game that his team is trailing by 34 points).

Officials won’t be expected to spot the gang signs, but they’ll pass along anything they notice to the league office.  Instead, the league will review tapes of games to determine, in conjunction with experts in the field, whether gang signs are being displayed. 

“There have been some suspected things we’ve seen,” Milt Ahlerich, NFL vice president of security, told Farmer.  “When we see it, we quietly jump on it immediately, directly with the team and the player or employee involved to cease and desist.  Period.” 

The problem is that gang signs often have non-gang meanings.  “Guys come from all over the country, and who knows what they’re really doing?” Jaguars receiver Dennis Northcutt told Farmer.  ”People have got signs for their kids, signs for their fraternities.  How do you differentiate who’s really throwing up gang signs?”

Northcutt also pointed out that the universal hand signal for the term “OK” is both a gang sign, and a signal for a personnel grouping.

The primary concern seems to be not that the use of gang signs is evidence of active gang involvement (although the league doesn’t want it), but that it could spark retaliation from players who might be aligned with opposing gangs.

“We were always suspicious that [gang-related hand signals] might be happening,” Mike Pereira, the NFL’s vice president of officiating, told Farmer, pointing to an incident in the NBA involving Paul Pierce of the Celtics, who made “menacing gestures” during a game.  “When he was fined . . . that’s when we said we need to take a look at it and see if we need to be aware of it.”

If it happens, there will be consequences.  “[I]t will be dealt with harshly,” Pereira said.  “The commissioner is not going to stand for gang signals on the field.”