If there is anyone in the NFL capable of understanding the temptations and troubles that come along with young stardom and seemingly infinite amounts of cash and varying degrees of stardom, it’s Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones. Or as Jones would more simply describe it, the ‘pitfalls’ of stardom.As such, who better to speak at this year’s rookie symposium, than none other than Adam Jones. And speak, he will.
For the second straight year Jones will be speaking to a room of recently drafted NFL rookies. He is scheduled to deliver his speech, or talk, or discussion sometime next week. The rookie symposium is scheduled to last between June 23-29 in Aurora, Ohio.
There is some controversy regarding whether Jones should be allowed to speak to the rookies, following his most recent arrest on an assault charge for what is being described as an open handed slap of a woman after she allegedly threw a beer bottle at him. She suffered minor injuries as a result of the incident. Jones has plead not guilty to this misdemeanour assault charge and even tweeted that he was “protecting himself”.
Getting arrested is nothing new for Jones. In 2012 he would plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. Jones has also pled no contest to an equivalent of no contest misdemeanour to commit disorderly conduct, in an incident at a Las Vegas strip club. The manager of the club was paralyzed from the waist down and one of the bouncers was wounded when a gunman, who claimed to be acting at Jones behest, opened fire in the club following Jones’ posse being kicked out. To this day Jones denies any involvement whatsoever in the shooting, which is going to cost him somewhere in the neighbourhood of $11M.
Can only hope this year’s crop of rookies heeds every last word uttered out of Jones’ mouth - assuming he’s still allowed to talk. Who knows, maybe if Jones had listened at his symposium, he wouldn’t always find himself in trouble.
You can follow J.D. Burke: @JDBurkeOV Reported by Opposing Views 11 hours ago.