The Adam "Pacman" Jones story is one that every professional football player has been forced to contend with at one point or another during his career: the quandary of how to react to someone joining your football team who has had multiple transgressions with the law and who at the same time also happens to be supremely talented.
I don't think anybody in the CFL has ever played alongside someone with the kind of rap sheet that "Pacman" has -- he has been interviewed by the police in 10 separate incidents and has been arrested numerous times -- but you get the point. Whether it's Jones, former Alouette and Miami Dolphin Lawrence Phillips, or former Jacksonville Jaguar and Argonaut R.J. Soward, it's always a case-by-case experiment as to how a team and its fans will respond to the addition of a player who brings more than just his bags with him, but the baggage of legal and public scrutiny.
As it stands right now, "Pacman" Jones, even though he is still serving an indefinite suspension with the NFL, is actively trying to orchestrate a trade between his former team, the Tennessee Titans, and the Dallas Cowboys. As was reported yesterday, the only thing holding up this trade is what the Cowboys are actually offering in exchange for his rights, as Jones was a No. 6-overall pick in the 2005 draft and the Cowboys initially offered nothing more than a seventh-rounder in exchange.
You would think that alongside the recognition of how much his stock has dropped in the NFL because of all the publicity surrounding the numerous fracases in which he has been involved, that players in the Cowboys organization would be less than thrilled about the prospect of him joining their team. Well, based on my 11 years in the game and experience of being a teammate to many a wayward soul, for the most part you would be wrong. In my experiences, the biggest problem assimilating a troubled athlete into a locker-room is the public relations nightmare that goes hand in hand with it. It does not always paint a franchise with the best brush to sign a career troublemaker and should the player continue to run afoul of the law, it tends to bring into question the judgment such an acquisition shows.
But there are reasons why a player like Jones would have a harder time being accepted by the public and media than necessarily by his new teammates in Dallas, should that trade come to fruition.
First and foremost is the fact that he most definitely would not be the only player on the roster who has been arrested and charged with a crime before.
Astounded
I remember the day I brought the book Pros and Cons into the Redskins locker-room and started reading out all the names of the players on my team aloud that were listed in the index with various indiscretions. I was astounded by how many players had gotten into trouble in one form or another during their collegiate or pro careers. So right from the start, it would be hard for many athletes to judge a man like Jones when many have had legal tribulations themselves.
The second, and probably biggest reason why players can accept and tolerate a disruptive force of this magnitude, is that it is our job to win games and most of us understand that attributes that may not necessarily make you a good person can make you a great football player.
It's not fair but it's just the way it is.
As ironic as it was for me to listen to Michael Irvin -- a man with a rap sheet almost eclipsing that of Jones -- interview and question "Pacman" on his radio show about his own rap sheet, they both concurred that the root of so many of his legal issues was his problem controlling his anger.
Football may be the one game where having a temper issue can pay great dividends between the hash marks and bring you nothing but grief off of it. I have appreciated the addition of many a player on my football teams over the years whose arrogant and aggressive swaggers on the field brought a much-needed dynamic to my team. Unfortunately though, the switch to turn this persona on and off wasn't always available and didn't always work as it is required in so many of us others.
Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.
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