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We're now in day 73 of the NFL lockout. The longest in the league's history with no end in sight.

On one end you have billionaire owners, who will be paid a guaranteed $4 billion in television revenue whether the season gets played or not. And on the other end you have the players, who a lot of fans view as being greedy and overpaid.

The two sides can't agree on how to split up $9 billion in revenue, which puts the 2011 NFL season in danger of not being played or cut short.

In the end it's the fans who fork over their hard earned money buying tickets and merchandise that will get the short end of the stick. But would they be angry enough to take to the streets and commit crimes out of anger or boredom as Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens suggests?

In an interview with ESPN, the linebacker says the crime rate in America will rise if there is no football.

“Do this research if we don't have a season -- watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up, if you take away our game," Lewis said in the interview. "There's too many people that live through us, people live through us," he said. "Yeah, walk in the streets, the way I walk the streets, and I'm not talking about the people you see all the time."

Asked why he thought crime would increase during a lockout, Lewis said, “there's nothing else to do."

Sure, football is America's favorite sport by far. Super Bowl XLIV had 106.5 million viewers according to Nielsen Media. Baseball's World Series and the NBA Finals don't come close to those numbers. However the idea fans will take to the streets and commit crimes if there are no games on Sunday seems kind of silly in my opinion.

What do you think of Lewis' comments? Will fans go nuts if the season isn't played?