For more than two decades, a recurring opening sequence on “Monday Night Football” featured an image of two helmets crashing into each other and exploding into smithereens.

The image, as familiar to football fans as the “bom-bom-bom-bom” of the show’s theme song, made its debut in 1986 and was featured until the end of last season, when the N.F.L. asked ESPN to discontinue the collision out of concern that it glorified violent hits to the head.

Helmet-to-helmet hits are in the news this week after the N.F.L. announced that it was fining three players as part of a plan to crack down on those who violate the league’s safety rules. But even as officials are stiffening penalties, critics have pointed out that the N.F.L. and television networks have capitalized for years on the same kind of bone-crunching hits they are now condemning.

“We glorify these hits,” Mark Schlereth, a two-time Pro Bowler and an N.F.L. analyst for ESPN, said on “SportsCenter” on Wednesday. “We make money on these hits. That’s what we do, and the N.F.L. profits on that.”