Pacman Jones: Does Anybody Want To Make an Opening Bid?

Adam "Pacman" Jones is a free agent again.

The question is, who the hell wants him?

When the Dallas Cowboys release you because of off-the-field personality issues, your career may have hit rock-bottom. This is a team that has put up with Terrell Owens for three years and once had a cocaine addict as its leading receiver.

Spurned by the most personality-challenged team in the league, Jones is faced with three options.

First, he can clean himself up, stay away from strip clubs, and take some anger-management classes in hopes of getting some poor saps to believe he's changed his ways.

Second, he can remain a free agent and stay unsigned for the 2009 season, until some team gets devastated by injuries and is desperate, but undoubtedly end up doing something else to get himself on the evening news and banned from the NFL for life while waiting.

Third and most likely, he can find a team willing to put with him (or rather, a team that thinks they can tame him) this offseason.

Of course, that shaky third option won't come into play if Jones thinks he's still an elite player. If anybody cares enough about the guy to offer him any money, it's going to be a one-year deal, probably worth less than either starting corner on the roster, and there will be behavior-related strings attached.

Sorry Pacman, that's what happens when you spend more time on suspension than on the field. It's not like the Cowboys didn't try to help, in their own twisted, overbearing way. Remember, Jones' altercation this past season was with a bodyguard hired to protect Jones from himself.

Anybody who signs him for anything more than that is a moron, and since Jerry Jones just let him go and Matt Millen is back in the broadcast booth, his "morons with money" options are limited.

Yes, I know you're all thinking about Al Davis right now.

Really though, assuming some team somewhere will sign him, where could he end up?

The first place you think of is the CFL. If the Cowboys dropped Jones, chances are everybody else in the league will be wary, especially in an increasingly disciplinary Roger Goodell-led league.

The CFL might work well for Jones, as well, given his need to stay in shape. He'll need to be playing somewhere where he makes an impact if he wants another NFL job, assuming no NFL team wants him right now.

That being said, the Oakland Raiders are actually an option. It isn't as though they don't need defensive help, and Al Davis might be the perfect sucker to think behavior isn't an issue. He took in Randy Moss, remember?

Speaking of Moss, what about the New England Patriots? After losing Asante Samuel and Randall Gay in the 2008 offseason, they badly need some help at the corner position.

Besides, the Belichick-led Patriots might be the only team in the NFL that can actually reform Jones and keep him out of trouble. Remember, Randy Moss was considered a washed-up problem case when he arrived in Foxborough, and you haven't heard a discouraging word from him since.

Other than a team that might reform Jones, which is likely the Patriots, and only the Patriots, the only team that should even consider the walking police blotter is a team so awful, so desperate for talent, that they have no choice but to take a gamble.

Enter the Detroit Lions.

The only bad thing that hasn't happened there yet is to have one of their players thrown in jail or suspended for life, so why not make a perfecta out of it?

Of course, the Lions are fodder for another article entirely. It's impossible to know where they're headed until we get a feel for Martin Mayhew and the new head coach, currently a black silhouette with a question mark for a face. To even consider Jones, the Lions will need a coach capable of handling him.

One of the most bothersome aspects about predicting Jones' future is that nobody knows if the man can still play. In limited action with the Cowboys this year, he looked abysmal.

More than likely, he has fallen out of football shape from his extended suspensions. That kind of thing happens, which is why it's so difficult to make a real comeback in the NFL (congrats, Ricky Williams).

With the Tennessee Titans, Jones looked like a future Pro Bowler. He lacked some polish (nobody knew just how much), but hey, he was a rookie. He'd get there soon enough.

Right?

Well, he might have. We're now faced with another case of talent wasted on a troublesome youth, who obviously needs some tough love from a coach played by Samuel L. Jackson or Denzel Washington to turn his life around.

When that happens in the movies, the kid's team often ends up winning big. Will that be the case here, or is it already too late?

Does Jones even care about winning anymore?

Did he ever in the first place?

Jones is only 25 years old and may still have some talent and untapped potential, whether anybody knows it or not.

The question now is, will his talent ever be more prevalent than his behavior?

Is there anybody left in the NFL willing to find out?