If Thanksgiving is the holiday

to express gratitude for our bounty while indulging in it, then the day after is the right time to recognize that enough is enough.

Despite the crash of Credit Card Nation, we are still a people of excess. Judging by the number of inches in the typical waistline, the number of Hummers taking up two parking spaces and the number of hours devoted to reality TV shows, Americans still are resisting the benefits of moderation.

Nowhere is bloat more obvious than in our sports culture.

Can we please declare that too much of a good thing is not a good thing?

Less is more!

To that end, here are some post-Thanksgiving diet tips for the athletic industry:

• Streamline seasons. The NFL must not add games to the schedule or even more players will be limping around in a concussion haze. Or their arms simply will break off, as Matthew Stafford's almost did last week. We know King Football is like an expanding algae bloom that wants to suck up every available time slot with its Combine, Pre-Draft Minutiae, Draft, Organized Team Activities (lanyard-making, anyone?), Training Camp, Preseason and Monday Night, Thursday Night, Middle-of-the-Night, 24/7 saturation, but soon the Super Bowl will interfere with March Madness.

Can the World Series go back to being the Fall Classic? By the time our next Mr. November comes up to bat in a snowmobile suit, he will have to wait for the basepaths to be shoveled. Has Bud Selig considered what frozen saliva could do to a pitch?

Leo Tolstoy and Fidel Castro might admire the length of the NBA and NHL seasons, but the rest of us don't pay attention until they are half-over.

The offseason in tennis consists of Christmas Day. Even NASCAR has punctured itself with too many races in too many places.

• Turn down the volume. Why does going to a sporting event have to be like going to a head-banging, heavy-metal concert? Or a bad rap concert? At NBA and NHL games, you cannot converse with the person next to you because you will be drowned out by music and hokey sound effects. Or the same old snippets from Queen or Huey Lewis. Or screaming announcers: ``Mr. Magoo for TWO!'' DJs and dance routines add to the noise that never stops. Players have to dribble to the accompaniment of fake hand claps.

• Slimmer paychecks. We've had our salaries cut or our jobs eliminated. So it's time for athletes to feel the pain of their fans. Alex Rodriguez made $226,034 per hit this year. Have you seen photos of Tiger Woods' new Jupiter Island manstrosity? How many bathrooms, boats or bling-bling does a human being need? How much money can a person spend? Bottom line, superstars get paid by the corporations and financial institutions that pay for sponsorships, TV commercials and naming rights. Who buys the products of these corporations that have laid off thousands of employees? Who bailed out the ineptly managed financial firms? YOU! So stop patronizing them. A-Rod and Tiger can survive on a few million less.

• Shhhh. There is too much sports talk. Athletes play games. They might ``study'' thick playbooks and ``break down'' film, but what they do isn't that complicated. Albert Einstein could have offered more insight on an interception than the quarterback who says, ``Bad throw.'' He's right. Do we have to rehash it endlessly on broadcasts, in blogs? Even this column is unnecessary, but at least it can be recycled or used as a weed inhibitor. To gasbag commentators: A baying tone does not confer authority. Listen to the BBC. Even Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin made their points concisely.

• Chill the hostility: Hey, angry sports obsessives, do you really think you know more than Tony Sparano or Bill Parcells? Or Randy Shannon? Or Erik Spoelstra? Really? Then apply for their jobs. Or try yoga.

• Cut coaching staffs. Do teams need an Assistant Coach for Hydration? Notice how basketball games are interrupted by on-court board meetings? Barack Obama has only one vice president.

• Timeout on timeouts: You could do your laundry or read Serena Williams' Twitterings during stoppages. The last two minutes of a close basketball game drag on for 30. It's bad enough that a three-hour football game contains only about

20 minutes of action. Now we've got challenges and reviews. Two timeouts per half is plenty -- one per half in a game with a zillion TV timeouts. One challenge per half. Revive suspense. Reward fitness and quick thinking. Take a lesson from soccer.

• On the ground, going forward, abolish clichés:

Athletes who ``play within themselves'' ought to talk within themselves, too.