Punishment doesn’t match Jones’
Rodney Leonhardt
Adam Jones should consider himself lucky to play football for as long as he has.
From April 2005 to October of this year Jones has been associated with a string of off-the-field incidents, including a triple shooting in Las Vegas in 2007. The NFL should have handed him his pink slip then and there, but Jones was granted a second chance – or third, fourth or fifth, if you’re counting.
With that said, the punishment for the latest incident should fit the crime. If NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell can forgive a triple shooting that left a person paralyzed, why blow a hotel scuffle with no arrests out of proportion? If a season-long suspension is the result of a gross misdemeanor in 2007, then why should an alcohol-induced scuffle go beyond four weeks and possible expulsion in 2008? You have to stick to your guns, Goodell. The suspension should be two to three weeks maximum, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Jones has exhausted his last chance for redemption
Jesse Livingston
It’s about time somebody pulled the plug on "Pacman’s" NFL career.
When Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones goes out of his way to employ babysitters… err… bodyguards to keep a grown man out of trouble, things aren’t right. I guess Adam Jones got bored of fighting strangers in nightclubs. Good ol’ Jerry then decided the incident had no relevance, therefore his starting cornerback would not be punished by the organization. It seems that the more chances Jones has received, the more he has taken advantage of them.
After being granted the opportunity to play for a championship-caliber team in the Cowboys after a one-year suspension, Jones should have kept himself away from situations that could have hindered his career. Instead, he brawled with his own bodyguard, knowing NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would be looking over his shoulder and magnifying his every move.
Goodell, forget four games. Kick him out. Maybe that will help him grow up.
NFL has failed to make a reasonable decision
Zaneta Loh
It is game over for "Pacman" Jones. He is desperately lost in a maze of blinking lights, and there are no bouncing cherries or strawberries left to save his butt from being caught by the red and blue ghosts.
Jones was out of lives a long time ago. His latest minimum four-game suspension is the result of an altercation with his own bodyguard fueled by alcohol and came just six weeks after he was reinstated by the NFL from a season-long suspension last year.
What kind of example is the league setting if players receive only slight punishments for committing crimes of violence and alcohol abuse? Kids who are grounded for not making their beds in the morning will come to see that doing well at sports excuses bad conduct.
Accomplishments on the field should not justify poor behavior off. Jones is a grown man and has been given more than enough chances to live up to be the role model he should be.
Arbiter of manliness knows Jones can’t handle harsh reality
Judge Dredd knows one thing – if Judge Dredd had decided to be an NFL commissioner, instead of being a freakin’ awesome laser-vision empowered enforcer of Man Decree, he would have taught Jones a valuable lesson. Nobody can party as hard as Judge Dredd.
One weekend with Judge Dredd and the NFL’s resident bad boy would experience uncontrollable seizures sparked by the thought of another nightclub, bar or tequila shot.
Jones would have a nightlife about as active as a 90-year-old man by the time Judge Dredd was done with him, and that would be the end of it.
But since Judge Dredd fills in freakin’ awesome laser-vision empowered enforcer of Man Decree in the occupation field on credit applications, he says Jones should be suspended for life. Yeah, that’s how Judge Dredd rolls.
Verdict: Jessie wins. Judge Dredd, by the way, wants to point out that his World Series prediction is just four Rays wins away from proving his omnipresence.
