Coaches putting players in their place? Will wonders never cease?

I love Mike Singletary. If I could, I would marry him. However, I have a better chance of owning an NFL team than marrying the man -- which means I'm starting my fundraising campaign right now. Get me money! Get me an NFL team! Mike Singletary will be my first hire, because he needs to be a head coach for as long as he's willing to put up with the preening idiots and self-serving knuckleheads.

Jim Zorn has shown the fortitude to make a stand with his players. (AP)

Which he isn't, come to think of it. He isn't willing to put up with Vernon Davis, as he demonstrated with vehemence Sunday in his coaching debut. Yes, the 49ers lost. Hey, they're the 49ers. Until they fix their problems in the front office, they're going to lose a lot of games.

But Singletary is going to win back that locker room. Or he's going to go down in a flame of righteous glory.

That has been the problem with the NFL for too long now. No righteousness. For a league that has players crediting Jesus for wins and pointing to the heavens after big plays, the NFL doesn't have nearly enough righteousness. Idiots prosper in this league. Cheaters win. Coaches illegally film other teams, players shoot steroids, and some of them get caught, but most don't. A convicted cheater in the NFL is like the cockroach on your kitchen counter -- there's about 50 more where that came from.

The players are the thing in the NFL, and they take advantage of it. Fans aren't there for the owner or the franchise. Fans are there to watch Terrell Owens run past the secondary and sail into the end zone and beat his chest and make out with the cheerleader and moon the crowd. Look into the bleachers. The fans aren't wearing team jerseys. They're wearing Terrell Owens jerseys. Or Vernon Davis jerseys. Or Clinton Portis.

The players know it, so they act up. Kellen Winslow cues his inner soldier and goes off on team officials, in their face and in the press, because he thinks he's bigger than the organization. Owens yells at coaches on the sideline. Chad Johnson gets into a locker room altercation with a position coach.

The players are bigger than life, and the coaches are just passing through. Three coaches have been fired already this season, and more will go. How many superstars will be released? None. Because the player is the thing. The player is everything.

And that's why I'm in love with Mike Singletary. And with Redskins coach Jim Zorn. They're leading what could be, if we're lucky, the new world order of the NFL.

Coaches aren't taking any more s--- from players.

Singletary tore into Davis, his incredibly talented tight end, after Davis picked up a showboating personal foul. He yelled at him in front of everyone, forced him to sit, and because that wasn't good enough, he then kicked Davis off the sideline. Told him to go into the locker room, shower and change out of his uniform, because Davis didn't deserve to wear it any more. Didn't deserve to stand on the sideline with his teammates as if he was pulling rope in the same direction as everyone else. Davis was pulling rope in his direction, and Singletary called him on it. After the game, Singletary told the media, "I will not tolerate players that think it's about them when it's about the team."

Shoot, I'm starting to think Singletary overdid it a little bit on Davis. But you know what? Overdoing it is better than the alternative. I'm a father, and people who know would tell you my parenting style errs on the side of discipline. Better to have too much than not enough, right? Better for me, better for my kids, better for everyone. Obviously the perfect amount of discipline -- not too hard, not too soft, just right -- is the goal. But perfection is impossible, so ... go to your room and don't come out until next Thursday.

That's what Singletary did to Davis. And it's what Zorn did to Portis, who seems like a good guy and a better teammate. He's flaky, with his costumes and blog and occasionally outrageous commentary. That doesn't make him bad; it makes him interesting. But on Sunday he was a little too flaky for Zorn when he took off a few plays to adjust his helmet, then trotted onto the field -- all without letting his coaches know what their best offensive player was doing.

So Zorn found Portis on the sideline and tore into him. By the time Zorn was finished, Portis was hanging his head under a towel. He cares, Clinton Portis. He was mortified. And he won't forget it, I promise you that. Neither will his teammates. By taking on his best player, Zorn showed the other 52 how it's going to be. If Portis can't get away with silly stuff, neither can you, Santana Moss. Or you, Chris Cooley.

Singletary has less traction in San Francisco than Zorn in Washington, because the 49ers aren't winning. Messages get delivered with more clarity in a winning locker room. Now then, the 49ers could rally around their tough coach and do all the little things right and play with newfound restraint and begin to beat better teams with superior discipline, because discipline equals execution. Or the 49ers could chafe under the pressure and shame of mounting losses and decide Singletary is a mean bully who can't talk to us like that. And if that happens, Singletary will go. Because the players are everything in the NFL.

In Dallas, Wade Phillips lets Owens be a jackass, and the Cowboys are an underachieving soap opera. In Cincinnati, Marvin Lewis coddled the idiotic Johnson for so long the Bengals lost their direction, and three years after going 11-5 they are halfway to 0-16 with the same core of players. In New York, Tom Coughlin soon will have a decision to make on unraveling Plaxico Burress and that decision will determine whether the Giants become serious threats to repeat as Super Bowl champions.

In Tennessee, the Titans unloaded Pacman Jones and benched Vince Young -- two completely different situations, but discipline is at the heart of both -- and the Titans, even without their most talented skill player on defense and offense, are 7-0.

It could be a new world order in the NFL.

Unless Singletary and Zorn are the only NFL coaches with testicles.