On Tuesday, MDS shared a snippet from Jim Wyatt’s interview with former Titans and current Bengals cornerback Pacman Jones. But there are plenty of gems that arose from the 25-minute call, so I decided to carve out another.
Though Jones admits he screwed things up off the field (it would be impossible for him to deny it), he wouldn’t concede that he was “out of control.”
“I plead the Fifth,” Jones said, whose brushes with the law ultimately resulted in a one-year suspension from the NFL. “You can put that [expletive] in the Tennessee papers. Why would I tell you? That would be a headline story I know. But I take responsibility. I don’t have any regrets, no regrets. But there ain’t nothing working out in Tennessee; they done got rid of one of the best coaches in the NFL. I loved Fisher. He was good to me.”
Pacman says he has grown and mellowed over the years. Now 28, he’s far different than he was at 21.
“When you have been living a certain way since you were 13 years old, you grew up fighting,” Jones said. “It takes time. That [expletive] just don’t happen overnight. You have to go through things and as you get older you see your future. There was a point when it hit me; I had to take this for real. This could be taken away from me as quick as it was given to me. But it wasn’t one particular thing. It was all of it.”
Given that he has stayed out of trouble, for the most part, since receiving that suspension in 2007, it’s fair to give him the benefit of the doubt one more time. More recently, his health has been an issue. He missed more than a full year with a neck injury, and he strained a hamstring at the end of a 63-yard punt return on Sunday in Seattle.
It’s unclear whether he’ll be able to play on Sunday in Tennessee. Don’t be surprised if he does. And if he does, don’t be surprised if he has an impact.