You half-expected the NFL to somehow devise a way to play its 15 games this weekend, to find some tortured reasoning to operate as usual because of the country's insatiable craving for large men running into each other at high rates of speed.

You know, to keep the engines churning for the psychological good of the nation.

Isn't it good, then, to be pleasantly surprised by people whose motives you thought you knew?

The league's announcement Thursday that it was abandoning this weekend's games out of respect for the emotional logistical pressures placed upon us all seemed to fly in the face of two full days of owners' conference calls. We'll never be sure what went on in those meetings, although their frequency and duration suggests that some owners wanted to play, and others were just as adamant not to. Nor will we know how much pressure the networks played in either playing or canceling the games.

In most such cases, though, the instinct to cash the check wins out in the end. Owners are usually predictable that way.

But this is the noblest way out for the NFL, allowed through the most horrific of circumstances the chance to undo its mistake of 1963. The owners were in danger of being almost alone among major American businesses in choosing to miss no work days, and instead they did the right thing -- for themselves, their employees and their fans.

It is the owners' small gift to the rest of the nation, showing that they understand that even football's power to make us forget our troubles is not limitless. The most pompous sports entity of them all -- the one entity that believes that the excesses of the Super Bowl are not excesses at all -- has seen what it cannot do and has chosen, wisely, not to try to prove otherwise.

While it is true that the league may have been forced into this posture by public sentiment, by logistical difficulties, perhaps even by political pressure, the fact is that it did what needed to be done. Or, more accurately, it chose not to do what needed not to be done.

This is not a small thing for the owners to admit, either. Their whole business plan, ever since TV empowered them in the late 1950s, was to take what they wanted whenever their appetites demanded satiating. New stadiums? Sure, whatever you need. Lease concessions? How many, and where do you want them piled? Labor negotiations? We'll get back to you. The NFL has been, in large ways and small, the most imperious of sports entities, simply because it could be.

And while it is true that the league may have been forced into this posture by public sentiment, by logistical difficulties, perhaps even by political pressure, the fact is that it did what needed to be done. Or, more accurately, it chose not to do what needed not to be done.

The league should get credit for this, because Lord knows it catches enough blame, both deserved and really deserved.

Of course, it helps that the season is not damaged by a week's fewer games. The season is not bastardized by the possibility that the San Diego Chargers, who were scheduled not to play this weekend anyway, might end up playing 16 games to everyone else's 15. The season is not wrecked by the break in continuity.

In fact, this is the first time the NFL has called games except for the infinitesimal reason of labor/management strife. Knowing how much they like to write their own history, the owners can claim this as a great moment in the history of the league without needing Steve Sabol's cinematic help.

And if they want to claim that credit at some future time, when the wounds have healed and left only the scars and we can find a perspective we cannot assemble now, good on their fathers. Nobody will begrudge them a bit of preening when the time is right, because any vote against business as usual in these dark gray times is to be commended.

Next week, of course, there will be games again. There will be more heartfelt singing of the national anthem, more American flags, food and cash and blood drives outside the 14 stadiums. Playing next week is a perfect expression of what the NFL can do.

Almost as perfect as not playing this week.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.