So Whadda You Care if Adam Jones Remain a Bengal? Lots of outrage came from the masses when reports of Adam Jones's arrest in early January. Seventh run-in with the law? Eighth?
“Thug!”
“Can’t have him on our team anymore!”
“Locker room cancer!”
“If the Bengals keep him I’m DONE with them!”
These were just some of the outcries. But Honestly, whadda you care if he got in trouble for another drunken altercation? Are you using Adam Jones as the role model for your kids? Are you looking to have family dinner with Adam any time soon? Are you looking to the NFL to be your moral compass as to how people should live their life? God I hope not.
No, you cheer for the Bengals from 1pm to 4:30pm on Sundays in hopes that your hometown team gets the “W”. A team that plays hard and gets wins is really all your hometown team owes you isn’t it?
Allow me to let you in on a little secret: the players in the locker room COULD GIVE A RAT’S BEHIND how a player behaves in his personal life. Not one bit. The only thing they care about is whether the other players on that team are available to help them win games which delivers them more money and more glory. Period, end of story.
And is this really any different from any of our professions? Whaddya you care if Jennifer in the office next to you is having an affair? Does that affect your life? As long as she hits her quota and the company...and thus, you...succeeds, do you care about her infidelity? So what if Dave down the hall gets his 4th DUI, as long as he’s good at bringing in the advertising revenue for the company you win! You’re not having dinner on the weekends with Dave. You’re not going on family vacations with Jennifer.
What Adam Jones did from a moral standpoint (fighting, racial slurs directed at a police officer, spitting on a nurse, etc) are not defendable. They’re horrible. But I’m not looking to the NFL to be my spiritual guide to how I should lead my life and raise my kids and neither should you. The only thing I look to the Bengals for is entertainment and wins, neither of which have any base in morality. This wasn't murder, rape, assault on a female, or anything like that, with those he must me gone immediately. But for this particular circumstance, as long as the NFL doesn’t suspend him and he’s available to play...and play at a high level...does it matter to you?
(please give me your thoughts in the comment section below, thanks!)