To temper some of the tones I'm seeing here, I think it's worth noting that the sport of football in general tends to be played in areas of the country where Christianity plays a pretty big part in the community. So sports, community, and religion tend to be pretty intertwined. Most of the guys on most football teams probably grew up in religious families. Tapping into that doesn't seem like the worst tactic if your goal is to build team unity and whatnot.