A clean-cut young dad brings his 10-year-old son to Invesco Field at Mile High to see their favorite team, the Oakland Raiders. They are both wearing Raiders caps, but no chains or leather or tattoos.

Four macho bucks two rows behind them spend the whole game riding the boy about his choice of team. They think their antics are frat-house funny. To anyone with children it's cruel and stupid. They're ruining what may be the first pro football game the boy has seen in person.

At another Denver home game, the same foul-mouths spend four quarters loudly conversing with each other, all the time trying to be funnier - i.e., more crude - than their buddies. The F-word is in almost every sentence. The sophomoric banter is at its worst whenever a young female ascends or descends the stairway alongside rows higher in the section.

Both examples of bad behavior actually happened at Broncos games last season. Neither was addressed during the game.

How would they be handled under the Broncos' newly announced fan conduct policy, which encourages patrons to register complaints via text messaging, and threatens unruly fans with ejection and season ticketholders with revocation of their rights to future seats? Would these incidents even fall within the policy?

The team has discouraged unruly behavior in the past, and has the right to eject particularly boorish and obnoxious fans. What's different this year is the . . . well, "squealer" provision .

The notion that some fans could get other fans kicked out brings up all sorts of questions that leave us thinking this is not a practical way to enforce game-watching etiquette.

For instance:

• Where will the line be drawn on boisterous and boorish conduct?

• What due process will accused fans receive?

• Will the accused have any opportunity to dispute the allegation by the unidentified accusers?

• When is the first response a warning, and when is it removal from the stands?

• Who decides on the spot?

• Will text messaging security with a complaint truly ensure anonymity for the fan who complains?

• If the misbehaving fan (or fans) is admonished but allowed to remain seated among those who might have complained, how uncomfortable will everyone else become as suspicion, resentment and tension build?

That dad, for example, might not have complained, but a fan nearby might have had too much. Yet the bullies two rows behind would no doubt conclude that a complaint referring to the boy and his dad must surely have come from the father.

Don't misunderstand. We applaud the Broncos for trying to control bad behavior by those fans who use the rampant aggression on the field to fuel their own frenzy as they disregard others in the stands.

We would even say a crackdown is long overdue. And we hope it is successful.

This well-intentioned attempt to involve patrons, however, is fraught with traps. If the Broncos want to ensure that the fans know offensive behavior won't be tolerated, it's the team's responsibility to enforce that code of conduct. If that means hiring more off-duty law enforcement officers to patrol the stands, so be it.

Ideally, eveyone at Invesco would practice self-control. But it's not the role of fans who are rightly offended by bullies and jerks to rat them out to stadium officials.