2) TCP is a byte oriented protocol, so there is no endian or word boundary problems.
3) Nothing is going to split a IP package between the backend servers and and the frontend balancer, where the later sees the "Connection". If something between the balancer and the client splits, it is its problem to recompute the new CRC
TCP doesn't use a CRC, it uses the algorithm described in RFC 1071 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1071.txt) which relies on ones-complement summing of 16-bit word values. Thus the position at which Connection appears does matter, as does the swapping of characters.
2) TCP is a byte oriented protocol, so there is no endian or word boundary problems.
3) Nothing is going to split a IP package between the backend servers and and the frontend balancer, where the later sees the "Connection". If something between the balancer and the client splits, it is its problem to recompute the new CRC