Do Today's Bad Boys Of The NFL Compare To Players Of The Past?

By Troy Sparks

There have always been players on NFL teams who were bad characters and misfits that no other team wanted.

Instead of going back the last 70 years, I'll go back the last 40 years.

The Oakland Raiders of the 1970's, in my opinion, were the bad boys of the NFL.  John Madden, who coached that team in the '70s, didn't care what his players did during the week as long as they played hard on Sundays.  I guess that's why they won a lot of regular season games during that decade.

What happened to them in the postseason that the Raiders made it to the Super Bowl only once? 

You wouldn't want to meet Jack Tatum, Ben Davidson, Lyle Alzado, Gene Upshaw, or John Matuszak in a dark alley alone.

The Dallas Cowboys had some characters on their team too.  Randy White, Too Tall Jones, and Leroy Jordan come to mind.

There weren't too many characters that I could remember who were bad boys in the NFL in the 1980s, and I can't remember any in the 1990s.

Now, there's a new generation of players with bad attitudes that keep getting dumped to other teams.  They have a boatload of talent and a low maturity level.

I'm surprised that a team like the Cincinnati Bengals wanted him.  If they want to know everything about him, just ask San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Dallas.

Randy Moss would've been a good pickup for Green Bay at the time that Brett Favre wanted him in Titletown, but his bad habits would've stood out.  Remember, he turned his back to the crowd and pretended to pull his pants down in a playoff game in Green Bay. 

Cedric Benson, Tank Johnson, and Chad Ochocinco had character problems.  Ironically, they played or currently play for the Bengals.

I think Steven Jackson from the St. Louis Rams is a troublemaker.

Some of the so-called bad boys of the NFL wouldn't hurt a fly.

Back then, people wouldn't dare stand up to Jack Youngblood, Jack Lambert, Mean Joe Greene, Dick Butkus, or Deacon Jones.  Compare to those guys, today's bad boys are punks.

The truth is, some of the NFL's bad boys won't help their team win in the regular season or postseason.