NFL COULD BE `NOT A FEW LIES'.

Byline: BILLY WITZ NFL 

It's not easy getting to the bottom of things these days, not without a shovel and waders. Getting your hands around the truth is getting to be as tough as getting a handle on Jamal Lewis. Cleveland Browns, I feel your pain.

After all, didn't somebody once declare, ``Read my lips: No new taxes''? And wasn't it somebody else who stared into the camera and affirmed, ``I did not have sex with that woman''?

And for the few who think, well, if it's in the paper it must be true, thanks to Jason Blair their number has been reduced to those who read the Weekly World News.

Of course, the art of lying - or, if you're Don King, improbity and obfuscation - has been around since Adam and Eve. Those in sports have been busy polishing it since the first scribe, stone tablet in hand, showed up at the Circus Maximus looking for postrace quotes.

This art, which over the millennia has been refined to a science, is so prevalent that it's hard to distinguish the difference between the sport of politics and the politics of sport, save for the result - one serious, one not.

It's so much an accepted part of our culture that when University of Washington coach Rick Neuheisel, a serial truth bender, was fired - not for gambling, but for lying about it - it came as a shock. They got him for that?

Which brings us to this week's episode: Denver coach Mike Shanahan letting it be known at halftime of his team's game with San Diego that his starting quarterback, Jake Plummer, had left the game with a mild concussion. This, when in fact, Plummer's injury was a mild shoulder separation.

Shanahan's rationale was that if backup quarterback Steve Beuerlein - the only one left on his roster - were hurt, he'd have to put Plummer back in and he didn't want the Chargers to know Plummer couldn't throw. (Never mind that anyone who'd witnessed Plummer in Arizona the past few years could have let San Diego in on that secret.)

Once the game was complete, Shanahan came clean and apologized for his ``fib.'' He knew the NFL has a rule about disclosing injuries before and after games - for which it heavily fines violators. But, Shanahan argued, the rule book said nothing about lying during the game.

The NFL, after deliberating for much of the week, announced it would not be punishing Shanahan. And why would they - since gamblers, for whom the rule is in effect, already had laid their money down by kickoff.

And besides, who in the NFL offices hasn't told a fib or two dozen themselves. Wasn't it Paul Tagliabue who stood atop the Coliseum steps several years ago and declared it to be the home of football in Los Angeles?

If the NFL had fined Shanahan, it might have been a busy week.

Consider:

--Oakland coach Bill Callahan, after escaping at home against hapless Cincinnati despite being outgained and outplayed by the Bengals, said with a straight face that it was ``an entertaining game by all standards.''

Standard Brands couldn't have painted a pretty picture of this one.

--Washington linebacker LaVar Arrington, weary of questions about New York Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey - who had 16 catches against the 'Skins last year - said: ``To be honest with you'' - a phrase that always sets off the hooey detector - ``we're worried about the Giants, not Jeremy Shockey. I mean a lot has been made to do about the guy, but I'm not buying it.''

We'll find out how Arrington really feels by the sound of his introduction the first time Shockey runs a crossing route today.

--Buffalo receiver Eric Moulds denied he spit on Miami cornerback Patrick Surtain last year, a charge that came up again with the teams meeting today in Miami.

Spit? He was just trying to get a smudge off Surtain's helmet.

Moulds said this week that he and Surtain patched things up in the offseason when they hung out together in Mississippi. Surtain's response: Billspit.

--Baltimore announced this week that it was heading to San Diego on Wednesday - two days earlier than scheduled - so it could escape Hurricane Isabel. And you think they'd be leaving early for Green Bay?

Give credit to Ravens coach Brian Billick for fessing up.

``I put up on the board: Hurricane. Cold, windy,'' Billick said. ``Stay here, or sunny and 77 (degrees) in San Diego. You choose.''

--San Francisco receiver Terrell Owens, in an interview with USA Today, was asked whether he was glad to see former coach Steve Mariucci go.

``It was bittersweet,'' Owens said. ``If you have any compassion or heart, you never want to see anybody lose his job, but this is business and that's part of it. I could lose my job. So it was sad to see him get fired.''

Perhaps Owens, in a moment of humility and solemn reflection, is truly being diplomatic. Just don't write it with a Sharpie. His feud with Mariucci was always a subplot in San Francisco and Mariucci, now coaching Detroit, will return next month.

More than likely, Owens is just borrowing from a tried-and-true formula these days in dealing with sleeping dogs: Let 'em lie.

CAPTION(S):

photo, 2 boxes

Photo:

no caption (San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia)

Box:

(1) ON THE GRIDIRON

By Matthew Kredell

(2) KANSAS CITY AT HOUSTON

- Compiled from Daily News wire services