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POSTED 9:26 p.m. EST, February 27, 2007
RAIN MAN PROVIDING MUCH-NEEDED WAKE UP CALL
Ten years from now, we'll look back on the February 18 incident involving Rain Man Jones, a roomful of strippers, $81,000, and a hail of bullets and say, "That was the moment at which the NFL got its head out of its hind quarters."
Jones has become a caricature. His behavior, if foreseen by the fictional show Playmakers, would have drawn even stronger huffs and puffs from former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
Jones has had eight brushes with the law, and no consequences. Heck, when he cold-cocked a guy with a pool cue up the road from PFT headquarters while attending WVU, he at least ended up with a black mark on his record. Since joining the NFL, Rain Man has acquired a coat of Teflon thick enough to make Mike Shanahan envious.
But not anymore. There is a growing sense that Rain Man will be the fall guy, and that he will pay for the sins of himself and his colleagues with his professional career.
How can it happen? It's easy. The Titans will cut him. And no one else will sign him. Sure, it might take a little collusion among the owners to ensure that a maverick bunch like the Cowboys or the Commanders won't break ranks. But if no one picks him up, and if the NFLPA doesn't cry foul, it's game over.
It's an end-justifies-the-means situation. Technically, Rain Man has done nothing to merit banishment from the league. As a practical matter, he no longer deserves to be a part of it.
And we fully expect Rain Man's misadventures to prompt meaningful change to the Personal Conduct Policy. Currently, the policy kicks in only after someone is convicted or pleads guilty to a crime. But convictions are too hard to get, and just because we have decided as a society not to throw a guy in jail absent proof beyond a reasonable doubt, it doesn't mean that a guy can't be fired from his job.
Termination is precisely what we advocated in October, after Titans defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth stomped on the face of Cowboys center Andre Gurode. Rain Man's position regarding the behavior of his teammate?
"We need more thugs on this team."
But just as convictions are too high of a bar for the imposition of discipline by the NFL, arrests are too low of a standard. Anyone can get someone arrested. If an angry wife or scorned girlfriend make false allegations against a player, an arrest is a virtual certainty.
Likewise, a conduct policy based on arrests would put too much power in the hands of police officers, a few of whom might be inclined to look the other way . . . at a price.
So what should the NFL do? First, a sweeping code of conduct should be developed. The code should include some things that aren't necessarily illegal, and it will omit certain things for which a guy can get arrested, such as parking tickets or driving with an expired license. The code should be clear, and it should be the product of negotiation between the NFL and the union.
Second, a panel consisting of a representative of the league office, a representative of the union, and a player would then preside over an effort to determine whether the player committed the conduct with which he is charged. The player would be represented by his agent or a lawyer, and not by the NFLPA. The prosecutor would be hired jointly by the league and the union. The legal standard would be proof by a preponderance of the evidence, a 51-49 scale-tipping test that results in a violation if the panel concludes that it is more likely than not that the player engaged in the behavior in question.
The penalty for a first strike would be a fine equal to one fourth of the player's cap number for the year in which the incident occurred.
The second strike would result in a four-game suspension.
The third strike would result in banishment, with the opportunity to apply for reinstatement after a year.
The next strike after reinstatement would result in banishment, with no opportunity to return.
Another possibility would be to impose a constant curfew on a player with one or two strikes. Then, if the player is in the wrong place at the wrong time -- and the clock reflects a time after the time when he was supposed to be home -- he automatically picks up another strike, no further questions asked.
The final product could take on many different forms, and our primary hope is that the NFL will do something to put a clamp on the rash of player arrests. Though Turd Watch has quickly become an extremely popular feature for us, we look forward to the day that it can be dismantled.
RAIN MAN PROVIDING MUCH-NEEDED WAKE UP CALL
Ten years from now, we'll look back on the February 18 incident involving Rain Man Jones, a roomful of strippers, $81,000, and a hail of bullets and say, "That was the moment at which the NFL got its head out of its hind quarters."
Jones has become a caricature. His behavior, if foreseen by the fictional show Playmakers, would have drawn even stronger huffs and puffs from former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
Jones has had eight brushes with the law, and no consequences. Heck, when he cold-cocked a guy with a pool cue up the road from PFT headquarters while attending WVU, he at least ended up with a black mark on his record. Since joining the NFL, Rain Man has acquired a coat of Teflon thick enough to make Mike Shanahan envious.
But not anymore. There is a growing sense that Rain Man will be the fall guy, and that he will pay for the sins of himself and his colleagues with his professional career.
How can it happen? It's easy. The Titans will cut him. And no one else will sign him. Sure, it might take a little collusion among the owners to ensure that a maverick bunch like the Cowboys or the Commanders won't break ranks. But if no one picks him up, and if the NFLPA doesn't cry foul, it's game over.
It's an end-justifies-the-means situation. Technically, Rain Man has done nothing to merit banishment from the league. As a practical matter, he no longer deserves to be a part of it.
And we fully expect Rain Man's misadventures to prompt meaningful change to the Personal Conduct Policy. Currently, the policy kicks in only after someone is convicted or pleads guilty to a crime. But convictions are too hard to get, and just because we have decided as a society not to throw a guy in jail absent proof beyond a reasonable doubt, it doesn't mean that a guy can't be fired from his job.
Termination is precisely what we advocated in October, after Titans defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth stomped on the face of Cowboys center Andre Gurode. Rain Man's position regarding the behavior of his teammate?
"We need more thugs on this team."
But just as convictions are too high of a bar for the imposition of discipline by the NFL, arrests are too low of a standard. Anyone can get someone arrested. If an angry wife or scorned girlfriend make false allegations against a player, an arrest is a virtual certainty.
Likewise, a conduct policy based on arrests would put too much power in the hands of police officers, a few of whom might be inclined to look the other way . . . at a price.
So what should the NFL do? First, a sweeping code of conduct should be developed. The code should include some things that aren't necessarily illegal, and it will omit certain things for which a guy can get arrested, such as parking tickets or driving with an expired license. The code should be clear, and it should be the product of negotiation between the NFL and the union.
Second, a panel consisting of a representative of the league office, a representative of the union, and a player would then preside over an effort to determine whether the player committed the conduct with which he is charged. The player would be represented by his agent or a lawyer, and not by the NFLPA. The prosecutor would be hired jointly by the league and the union. The legal standard would be proof by a preponderance of the evidence, a 51-49 scale-tipping test that results in a violation if the panel concludes that it is more likely than not that the player engaged in the behavior in question.
The penalty for a first strike would be a fine equal to one fourth of the player's cap number for the year in which the incident occurred.
The second strike would result in a four-game suspension.
The third strike would result in banishment, with the opportunity to apply for reinstatement after a year.
The next strike after reinstatement would result in banishment, with no opportunity to return.
Another possibility would be to impose a constant curfew on a player with one or two strikes. Then, if the player is in the wrong place at the wrong time -- and the clock reflects a time after the time when he was supposed to be home -- he automatically picks up another strike, no further questions asked.
The final product could take on many different forms, and our primary hope is that the NFL will do something to put a clamp on the rash of player arrests. Though Turd Watch has quickly become an extremely popular feature for us, we look forward to the day that it can be dismantled.
It's that kind of attitude that has gotten us where we are today. Obviously no one has instilled any morals or standards into Jones who is "just a football player" and now there's a body guard sitting in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. If Jones were an employee of a company he would have been fired several "instances ago". These players are coming into the league with the attitude that they are above the law and whether you want to admit it or not, above a moral standard that this country was founded on.
Many companies will fire people for a lot less than what we see taking place in sports, it has become a joke with guys constantly getting busted and coming right back to collect their big pay checks.