From the Seattle Times: Mora learned that in Iraq, the NFL was the great escape.

"Here we are, 7,000 miles away from home in this God-awful place," he said. "It's 120 degrees. There's dust storms. It's nasty, ugly, awful. These guys haven't seen their families in months. They're doing these thankless jobs in this horrible environment, and doing them with smiles on their faces.

"But their biggest concern was not, are we going to take on indirect fire tonight. It was, are we going to have a season? They were really worried about that. The games give them something to talk about all week. That's the galvanizing power of the NFL."

Along with his father, Jim; Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt; and Houston coach Gary Kubiak, Mora, the former Seahawks coach, went to Iraq as part of a USO tour.

He called the trip humbling.

"Initially, there was this allure of going to this exotic, foreign place," Mora said. "But then the trip became something I felt I had to do, almost like it was my duty to do it. It started out as something I thought would be fun, but it became something more solemn that needed to be done."

To read Steve Kelley's entire column, click here.