Why this is the best thing that’s ever happened to Pacman Jones

The NFL recently granted Pacman Jones limited reinstatement into the NFL and he’s been participating in practices with the Dallas Cowboys who acquired his services for a pittance. I was watching the ticker on ESPN yesterday to see it excitedly proclaim “Jones returned interception 80 yards for touchdown in practice”. Wow! An eighty-yard pick-six in a June practice? Can I vote for him for the Pro Bowl yet?

This suspension gained Pacman Jones the kind of attention and notoriety that most players dream and play for. He already clearly wanted attention, being known for walking around on weekends wearing his OWN jersey out to clubs, and the fateful night of the strip club shooting he decided to join the rapper on stage throwing his money out into the club in order to “make it rain” on the crowd.

But since this incident and his suspension for the entire 2007 season he’s received a wildly inordinate amount of attention to his playing career and ability. This is a guy who’s had four interceptions in two years in the league, has forced one fumble and has one sack. He’s returned a few touchdowns as the return man, but behind Brett Farve we haven’t heard more about any other player in this offseason.

In 2006, Pacman Jones finished the season with 62 tackles, four interceptions, a sack, a forced fumble, and no touchdowns.  

In 2006, Raiders Cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha finished the season with 50 tackles, eight interceptions, a sack, a forced fumble and one touchdown.

In 2007 Nnamdi Asomugha was so well regarded by opponents that opposing quarterbacks only threw the ball to his man 31 times ALL SEASON and only ten of those passes were caught. Pacman Jones didn’t set foot on the field because of his off-field problems.

So why are we all over Pacman Jones? The sports media creates so many awful self-perpetuating stories that never die. It’s pretty well documented that cornerbacks don’t make a defense anyway and that the current wave of large contracts for them is fruitless (this hurts me as a Bay Area fan to see Nate Clements here for the 49ers @ $80 million and DeAngelo Hall here for the Raiders @ $70 million). Who cares about this guy? The Cowboys are going to win games if they can eliminate their offensive mistakes, not if Jones can duplicate his 2006 year and create a a turnover once every four games and score one pick-six touchdown for the Cowboys who averaged more than 28 points a game. The performance of a great cornerback is negligible to the success of a team and Pacman Jones doesn’t stand apart on his own. It’d be nice if someone could reset the entire Sports media at once because I feel like everyone reports on stories like Pacman and random Brett Farve news simply because everyone else is doing it too. Let’s all move on.