Angus
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Jets' Miller shows little sense
May 22, 2007
What struck me initially wasn't the alleged crime, but the time. It was 4:20 in the morning. Has anything good ever happened at that hour?
Nothing is awake at 4:20 except trouble, and at this stage of the game, an NFL player should know that. The longer you stay out, the more likely something will go terribly wrong, as it did two days ago for Justin Miller, a Jets kick returner and cornerback who didn't have the good sense to return home early. Instead, he just gave a whole new meaning to Miller Time.
Next was the setting: a nightclub. Nothing strange ever happens there, right? Those fine establishments are filled with liquor, hot women and testosterone-fueled guys looking and bracing for some action. Put that into a mixer and shake a few times and see what pours into your cocktail glass. Add a twist of fame and jealousy and misunderstanding, and you'll have the ingredients that make a good many of the recent incidents that forced the NFL to take a tough stance on knucklehead behavior.
Miller's problem early Sunday morning was the time and place. That's what got him into trouble. That led to what happened next. And if you went back and checked the NFL blotter, you'd see a pattern: young players putting themselves in position for something bad to happen, sometimes caused by them, sometimes by others.
In most cases, the root of their problem is liquor or women or both, and some young players with their first taste of celebrity and privilege can't handle either. They come into a mature and professional world without mastering the part about being mature or professional and subsequently fall into all the traps. You see DUIs, rowdiness, spousal abuse, girlfriend abuse, babymomma abuse, the works.
You see Miller, according to police reports, getting into a fight and hitting a woman who was a bystander in a club just before the break of dawn. A wise person wouldn't have been in that spot in the first place.
We don't really know who or what exactly started this latest NFL incident, but again, that's not the issue. Time and place. That's the issue. Being in a club at 4:20 a.m.? That's no crime, but that's asking for one to happen.
The Jets will not trade Miller to the Bengals. No, his punishment won't be that harsh. But he must deal with Roger Goodell and the commissioner's rapidly reduced tolerance level for bad behavior. Miller will discover that this is the wrong time to get dirty, unless you're in uniform.
Weary of his players appearing outside of the sports pages, Goodell is coming down hard and doling out suspensions when and where necessary through the league's new Personal Conduct Policy, also known as the Pacman Policy. On principle, Goodell has every right to yank football away from the repeat offenders, and this is why Miller issued the fastest apology in sports history. He's nervous because his past is gaining on him. He was arrested on disorderly conduct charges the week before the Jets drafted him in 2005 and has a prior DUI charge.
Although neither of those incidents officially came on the NFL's watch, my hunch is the Jets better see if Johnny "Lam" Jones is still fast enough to return kicks for the opener.
Strictly from a fairness standpoint, however, Goodell's policy doesn't measure up well against its biggest abuser. Since being drafted in 2005 by the Titans, Pacman Jones has interviewed with police 10 times for numerous reasons and been arrested five times. And he did throw money around Feb. 19 in a Vegas strip club in an incident that resulted in a man being shot three times and paralyzed from the waist. But Jones hasn't been convicted of anything, and he and his attorney listed 280 other players arrested or charged since 2000 who weren't suspended for an entire season, the punishment for Jones.
You won't find anyone feeling sorry for Pacman or anyone else who becomes a menace away from the field, however. Not only is Goodell's policy meant to stamp out the nonsense and the idiots, but it also has the full support of the many law-abiding NFL players. They're tired, too. They're sick of being lumped with a handful of immature fools who insist on giving the league a bad image, when the majority of players confine their violence to the field on Sunday afternoon.
Now that's the right time and place to cause problems.
http://www.newsday.com/sports/print...71may22,0,6192750.column?coll=ny-sports-print
May 22, 2007
What struck me initially wasn't the alleged crime, but the time. It was 4:20 in the morning. Has anything good ever happened at that hour?
Nothing is awake at 4:20 except trouble, and at this stage of the game, an NFL player should know that. The longer you stay out, the more likely something will go terribly wrong, as it did two days ago for Justin Miller, a Jets kick returner and cornerback who didn't have the good sense to return home early. Instead, he just gave a whole new meaning to Miller Time.
Next was the setting: a nightclub. Nothing strange ever happens there, right? Those fine establishments are filled with liquor, hot women and testosterone-fueled guys looking and bracing for some action. Put that into a mixer and shake a few times and see what pours into your cocktail glass. Add a twist of fame and jealousy and misunderstanding, and you'll have the ingredients that make a good many of the recent incidents that forced the NFL to take a tough stance on knucklehead behavior.
Miller's problem early Sunday morning was the time and place. That's what got him into trouble. That led to what happened next. And if you went back and checked the NFL blotter, you'd see a pattern: young players putting themselves in position for something bad to happen, sometimes caused by them, sometimes by others.
In most cases, the root of their problem is liquor or women or both, and some young players with their first taste of celebrity and privilege can't handle either. They come into a mature and professional world without mastering the part about being mature or professional and subsequently fall into all the traps. You see DUIs, rowdiness, spousal abuse, girlfriend abuse, babymomma abuse, the works.
You see Miller, according to police reports, getting into a fight and hitting a woman who was a bystander in a club just before the break of dawn. A wise person wouldn't have been in that spot in the first place.
We don't really know who or what exactly started this latest NFL incident, but again, that's not the issue. Time and place. That's the issue. Being in a club at 4:20 a.m.? That's no crime, but that's asking for one to happen.
The Jets will not trade Miller to the Bengals. No, his punishment won't be that harsh. But he must deal with Roger Goodell and the commissioner's rapidly reduced tolerance level for bad behavior. Miller will discover that this is the wrong time to get dirty, unless you're in uniform.
Weary of his players appearing outside of the sports pages, Goodell is coming down hard and doling out suspensions when and where necessary through the league's new Personal Conduct Policy, also known as the Pacman Policy. On principle, Goodell has every right to yank football away from the repeat offenders, and this is why Miller issued the fastest apology in sports history. He's nervous because his past is gaining on him. He was arrested on disorderly conduct charges the week before the Jets drafted him in 2005 and has a prior DUI charge.
Although neither of those incidents officially came on the NFL's watch, my hunch is the Jets better see if Johnny "Lam" Jones is still fast enough to return kicks for the opener.
Strictly from a fairness standpoint, however, Goodell's policy doesn't measure up well against its biggest abuser. Since being drafted in 2005 by the Titans, Pacman Jones has interviewed with police 10 times for numerous reasons and been arrested five times. And he did throw money around Feb. 19 in a Vegas strip club in an incident that resulted in a man being shot three times and paralyzed from the waist. But Jones hasn't been convicted of anything, and he and his attorney listed 280 other players arrested or charged since 2000 who weren't suspended for an entire season, the punishment for Jones.
You won't find anyone feeling sorry for Pacman or anyone else who becomes a menace away from the field, however. Not only is Goodell's policy meant to stamp out the nonsense and the idiots, but it also has the full support of the many law-abiding NFL players. They're tired, too. They're sick of being lumped with a handful of immature fools who insist on giving the league a bad image, when the majority of players confine their violence to the field on Sunday afternoon.
Now that's the right time and place to cause problems.
http://www.newsday.com/sports/print...71may22,0,6192750.column?coll=ny-sports-print
