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On a sunny afternoon in Philadelphia last November, a dangerous melodrama unfolded on the carpeted concrete of Veterans Stadium. But save for the few players involved, no one noticed it, not even the officials on the field.

The 7-3 Eagles were playing the 7-3 Redskins. Early in the second quarter, with Washington up 3-0 and driving for another score, a Gus Frerotte pass bounced off the hands of diving tight end Jamie Asher at the Philadelphia five and into the arms of cornerback Troy Vincent. As Vincent turned upfield and Asher climbed to his feet, Eagles middle linebacker James Willis clubbed the Redskins tight end with a shot to the back of the head. Predictably, Asher and Willis were at each other's throats immediately, and it took a half-dozen players to separate them.

That was just the beginning. On the sideline after the play, Washington's offense gathered and agreed that Willis had to be punished. He had drawn a flag for a punch to Asher's face after the play was over, but they felt he should have been ejected for the blind-side rabbit punch that instigated the skirmish. (It wasn't only the officials who had missed Willis's sucker punch; so had the Fox TV crew covering the game. After a commercial break the network aired a replay that began with Asher's missing with a retaliatory haymaker at Willis, while broadcasters Pat Summerall and John Madden implied that it was Asher who had started the fight.)

Three plays into Washington's next offensive series, on third-and-inches, 308-pound tackle Joe Patton hit the 235-pound Willis behind the right knee while 284-pound center Jeff Uhlenhake bulldozed him over the top of the pile. Willis, the Eagles' second-leading tackler last season, was out for the rest of the game with a sprained knee. He made only eight tackles in Philadelphia's five remaining games.

To anyone watching the game, Willis's injury looked like an accident. To be sure, in the dog-eat-dog world of the NFL, the line between physical play and dirty play is often tough to draw. But cheap shots do occur, and much of the unsportsmanlike conduct goes unnoticed.

"The average fan doesn't know what takes place out there—the name-calling, the spitting, the pinching," says Bears linebacker Barry Minter. "I've been on piles and heard guys hollering, 'He's biting me!'"

"It's just part of the game," says Seahawks running back Steve Broussard. "In the trenches, cheap shots go on during every play."

Players have always considered dirty play more a necessary evil than a deadly sin. But according to a recent Sports Illustrated poll of more than 150 players, it appears to be on the rise. "It's going up," says Raiders linebacker Anthony Davis. "You've got rookies coming into the league, they see these guys, and they think that's the way to play. With free agency you've got players bouncing around the league trying to catch on. I think it's going to get worse with more guys moving around."