Grateful Dead fans start petition for band to play Super Bowl 50 halftime

It's clear that the NFL has tried its best to move on from the old-white-guys halftime performers for its Super Bowl halftime entertainment.

Well, I ain't often right, but I've never been wrong ... and darn it, hear me out a second: Why shouldn't the Grateful Dead — or what's left of them — play halftime of Super Bowl 50 in the San Francisco-ish area next February? A group of fans agrees with me, starting up an online petition asking for the Dead to earn the gig that already is pushing 10,000 signatures as of this writing.

It's perfect: The Dead in San Fran (about a 45-minute trip from the Haight-Ashbury District) for Super Bowl 50 on the band's 50th anniversary. Make it happen.

I get it: The kids don't want that. Surviving founding members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart are either well into their 60s, or already in their 70s in Lesh's case. But reprising their "Fare Thee Well" shows (two of which were at Levi's Stadium, home of the Super Bowl) from this summer, the Core Four members are now going back on the road this fall, with kid-friendly rock icon John Mayer tag-teaming in for Phish's Trey Anastasio for the Jerry Garcia frontman role.

The three Chicago shows were fantastic. The guys still have it, and Mayer should inject a little life and youth into the ensuing tour.

Mayer is still kid-friendly, right? And he's still dating Katy Perry, last Super Bowl's halftime performer, right? Well, then maybe the kids can dance and shake their bones, to quote the Dead classic "Throwing Stones," with Mayer and the sextegenarians in the town in which the Dead cut their teeth.

Too often, the league has been hit and miss on their halftime selections. On the good side, Prince (XLI) will never be topped. Beyoncé (XLVII) was Beyoncé; she's great. I'm unapologetic in my love of Bruce Springsteen (XLIII), and because Bruce answered my question at his press conference a few days before, he forever earns a spot in the Edholm Hall of Halftime Performer Fame.

But Madonna (XLVI), Black Eyed Peas/Slash/Usher (XLV), The Who (XLIV) — bad, bad and bad.

Heck, I even embraced the odd pairing of Bruno Mars and Red Hot Chili Peppers (XLVIII) and their mildly entertaining set, but the fact that the league reportedly has reached out to Mars to play again has us thinking ... really?! Are you that hard up for quality entertainers?

So instead of Mars, we suggest a trip to the Mars Hotel, and we're sure the Dead won't be a letdown. Yes, it's true: a 12-minute performance window, for the Dead, could be one song (or less). But we think the Dead easily could pull off a Truckin'->Sugar Magnola->Touch of Grey trio, and though those are not our three favorite songs by any means, we'd still tune in.

Would others? That's the NFL's bottom line. But we're past the point really giving any cares about the league's latest tone-deaf money-making schemes. Back to "Throwing Stones" a moment:

Commissars and pinstripe bosses roll the dice
Anyway they fall, guess who gets to pay the price?
Money green, or proletarian gray