So, when exactly do they get in trouble?

The big sports news here in Nashville is Adam "Pac Man" Jones, a cornerback/ kick returner for the Titans. It is the only thing being talked about on the local sports talk radio show. It even leads the 10:00 news. It follows a pattern of about every couple of months or so since I moved here in March of last year. If you don't know about Pac Man here is the story. During the NBA All-Star weekend (which by the way sounds like it was a train wreck), Pac Man went to a strip club with $81,000 in bills and began to shower them on the strippers, called making it rain. Apparently, he did not consider this shower to be for those nearby, because when the strippers began to pick up this money, Pac Man slammed one of the girls head on the the stage. This began a ruckus that ended with shots being fired by a member of Pac Man's group and three people injured, one paralyzed. Of course, Pac Man has plausible deniablity in the shooting. He didn't pull the trigger and none of his guys are going to say that he ordered the shooting. He is their gravy train. But this has been a pattern of behavior that goes all the way back to his time at West Virginia.

Here are two brief lists of Pac Man Jones misbehavior, one from the Tennessean and one from Wikipedia.

As you can see, this a pattern of behavior that goes back years and is not liable to get any better. There is no question that he is a premier talent. He is perhaps as good or better than Devin Hester returning punts. He is premier cover corner in the NFL and easily the best defensive player for the Titans last year. There are a number of questions that come up. What do the Titans do with him? Why does he continue to persist in this destructive behavior? How has this guy not done any prison time?

It seems to me that this is a bad guy. One of the big problems with sports these days is that money is so huge and the payoff for a talent like Jones is so rich that no one has the audacity to tell this kid do. And he is a kid, he's only 23 years old. It's sad to see this guy seem to be trying desperately to waste his talent.

I'm not trying to tell the Titans how to live their life, but you know Jeff Fisher is wondering when am I gonna get a phone call saying that Pac Man is either dead or has killed someone. I don't know the salary cap implications. I do know that if they let him go, they will need, not one, but two cornerbacks next year. There will also be another team who needs a cornerback who will give him another chance. I also know that if he comes back and plays for the Titans next year, all these folks that are calling into the talk shows and saying "We gotta get rid him. He's cancer!" are going to be cheering for him when he returns a kick or an interception for a touchdown. Because, really what's more important in our society? If you can score, you can do whatever you want.

UPDATE: It looks like the NFL is going to investigate the incident. Evidently, they are "extemely concerned" about the behavior of players over the past year. Between Tank Johnson and the 2/3 of the Bengals whole team, the NFL has suffered a number of black eyes over the past year. I bet if they find anything wrong, they come down hard on Pac Man.

Let me give one caveat. The owner of the strip club has been everywhere. He was on both Nashville sports talk radio stations two days after the incident and then on Dan Patrick and on any number of other outlets. Now, I didn't listen to any of these interviews, but it seems like an opportunity for this guy to get as much pub as he possibly can for himself and his club. I heard that it has been having money problems (although I would think that a strip club in Vegas is about as gauranteed a business venture as one could come up with) and this is great chance to get his name out there. I'm just saying.