WOODY: The NFL banning cheerleaders would be something to cheer about

That means six teams -- the Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers -- should be celebrated. They don't demean women, on the field anyway.

Here's a thought worth pursuing. Those 26 teams with cheerleaders should eliminate the programs all together. That would be something to cheer about.

Those six teams haven't been subject to complaints filed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for workplace discrimination (New Orleans Saints). They haven't faced lawsuits filed with the Florida Commission on Human Rights (Miami Dolphins) for discrimination and retaliation because of religion and gender.

And, in the latest NFL cheerleader story, those teams do not have to respond, as do the Washington Redskins, to stories in the New York Times about a trip to Costa Rica where allegedly the cheerleaders' passports were collected, allegedly featured topless photo shoots with FedEx suite holders, all men, observing, and where nine cheerleaders, allegedly, were told to attend a private party as "escorts" (no sex was involved) for the men on the trip.

The Redskins are investigating the allegations.

It's tempting to say the six teams without cheerleaders are teams you would expect because they're among the most respected organizations in the league and are all about football, that's not the entire story.

The Billls had cheerleaders until 2014. They'd even selected the squad for the 2014 season, but disbanded the Buffalo Jills rather than deal with a lawsuit over alleged violations of minimum wage laws in a suit filed by former cheerleaders.

The latest revelation involving the Redskins' cheerleaders is one of a number of instances that have given teams' treatment of cheerleaders a black eye.

In 2013, the Raiderettes settled a lawsuit with the Oakland Raiders for $1.25 million over violations of minimum wage and overtime laws.

In 2015, the Tampa Bay Bucs settled a lawsuit for $825,000 with its dance team when a woman filed suit saying that after all the obligations were met, the women received wages equivalent to $2 an hour.

Earlier this year, New Orleans Saints' cheerleader Bailey Davis filed an EEOC complaint after she was dismissed from the team for posting a picture of herself, on her Instagram account, in a one-piece, lingerie-like body suit. This cost her a fourth-year with the team, during which she would have earned $10.25 an hour.

In the NFL, sex sells, as long as it's the team that gets to sell it.

So, give the Bears, Browns, Packers, Giants, Steelers , and maybe the Bills since 2014, credit for focusing on their core business -- football.

In 2010, Giants co-owner John Mara told the New York Times, "Philosophically, we have always had issues with sending scantily clad women out on the field to entertain fans. It's just not our philosophy.

"Some teams are comfortable having cheerleaders and selling cheerleader swimsuit calendars or in a couple of cases lingerie calendars. It's not something you're going to see the Giants do, not while I'm around, anyway."

Mara is still around. The Giants still do not have cheerleaders.

The Steelers would seem to share that philosophy. They did have cheerleaders in the 1960s, the pre-swimsuit and lingerie calendar days, before the program ceased.

As for why, well, that's either a mystery or a tightly held family secret.

The Steelers, through a spokesman, "politely" declined to comment on the topic. 

The Packers, one of the smallest market teams in all of professional sports, hew to their solid, homespun, Midwestern values. Technically, they have cheerleaders, but they are hardly typical of the NFL -- they are the cheerleaders from Green Bay-area colleges, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and St. Norbert College.

The Bears had the Honey Bears from 1976-85. They were disbanded two years after team owner George Halas died and his daughter Virginia Halas McCaskey, inherited the team.

McCaskey seems to share Mara's feelings about scantily-clad women on the sidelines. Stories out of Chicago have it that every time the topic of re-instating the Honey Bears arises, McCaskey says no.

Cleveland had cheerleaders for one year, 1971. They were high school girls who arrived at the game with a chaperone. Pat Modell, the wife of Browns owner Art Modell, thought the young women looked ridiculous in winter clothing, and there were no cheerleaders in 1972 nor have there been since.

It would be nice to tie all this up in a neat little package and say the franchises that care most about the success of their football operations and have long-time ties to the league -- Bears, Packers and Giants -- understand winning is what sells tickets, not women in tight-fitting, often revealing attire.

But Cleveland is dreadful, the Bears have struggled of late and the Bills' decision to eliminate cheerleaders was more expedient than enlightened.

What can be said is that six teams, mostly for good reasons, choose not to use and objectify young women in pursuit of calendar sales or to pair what always sells so well, sex and violence.

Records aside, fans should take pride in that.