Bad boys, bad boys: Andrews gone, Harrison still No. 1

By Os Davis  |   Thursday, July 03, 2008  |  Comments( 5 )

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For the New England Patriots this decade, public perception of the team has morphed from white-hot excited to absolute-zero frigid, from shocking and awing to leaving little more than disdain.

Perhaps oddest of all about these onetime underdogs cum rabid Old Yellers is the strange doublethink many in the football world have regarding the Patriots themselves. Simultaneously, we’re supposed to understand that playing for Bill Belichick’s New Englanders (a) is somehow rehabilitative to certain discipline problems and (b) makes you one of the NFL’s baddest dudes, willing to do anything to win.

This doublethink requires us to first accept that somehow the argument of Pacman Jones’ agent, Manubir “Manny” Arora, that playing in New England would somehow imply Jones’ good citizenry is justified: “The track record the Patriots have in giving players a fresh start would be a great fit,” claimed Arora then.

On the utterly contradictory other hand, the at-large population also has little problem condoning the full-scale booing of Patriot players apparently innocent of any knowing wrongdoing whatsoever at the Pro Bowl.

So let's get this straight: The NFL’s problem children can be handled or even attitudinally rehabbed in New England, but it turns them into dirty cheaters?

A couple of recent stories – OK, one story and one ESPN-generated non-story – brought issues of player discipline to the forefront of Patriots news, actually a rarity despite public perception on the tight ship USS Belichick.

The bad news was all related to defensive back Willie Andrews, last year a rookie of some promise with the Patriots and poised to perhaps move up a bit on the depth chart in 2008. In the wee hours Monday morning, a handgun-equipped Andrews supposedly threatened the life of his girlfriend and was arrested on charges of “illegal possession of a large capacity firearm and assault with a dangerous weapon.”

On Monday, the Patriots released a statement written in similar fashion to everything from comments on video scandals to Tom Brady’s status as “questionable” for next week: “The New England Patriots take the conduct of our players very seriously. We are aware of the very disturbing and alarming reports regarding Willie Andrews. We will not offer any additional comment, as is our policy regarding pending legal matters.”

Personally speaking, this writer was all set to crank out the rant about another team preaching character while simultaneously ignoring, say, recent arrests. After all, Andrews had been busted for marijuana possession in February, essentially a non-event in terms of big-time crime that would have driven many a franchise’s PR system in paroxysms, and the team might have released the same statement.

But no.

Andrews is gone with no chance of ever becoming a distraction or “character issue” with the Patriots. Probably hastening the decision were the realities that Andrews would be behind bars without bail until Thursday and he’ll likely never play football again, but still.

Meanwhile, Mike Sando’s interesting, sensationalist Tuesday column, “Coaches validate Harrison's rep as NFL's dirtiest player,” over at ESPN once again exhumed that old endearing Rodney-Harrison-plays-dirty story for its annual trot-around.

Much of Sando’s piece plays the same old saws – remember that helmet-to-helmet hit on Jerry Rice? – and most interesting is some of the ESPN research on Harrison’s personal fouls included toward the bottom. Five of Harrison’s 14 personal fouls accumulated since 2001 got the mysterious classification of “other.” Harrison is booked far less frequently on flagrant face-mask and roughing-the-passer charges than many relatively under-the-radar guys, and let’s face it, as long as Roy Williams of the Cowboys is still around, he’s gotta be No. 1.

Professional sports franchises from the Indiana Pacers down to the Detroit Lions have all too often proven themselves willing to overlook real character issues – here we’re talking about stuff like DWI and drawing guns in an alcohol-fueled rage as opposed to talking trash to media or smoking post-game reefers with a teammate, incidentally – while preaching the clean NFL party line.

Say what you want about Harrison, Spygate and the sometimes surly Patriot organization, but the New England brain trust sent the correct message with the Andrews release: Bad-boy behavior stops when off the field. Most often quoted in the Arora/Pacman-coming-to-Boston story was the agent’s line, “Over my years representing athletes and being a lawyer, as long as you’re winning, all the baggage goes away.”

Unfortunately for him, today Andrews is the baggage.

"Not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good" throughout the year at RealFootball365.com
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
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CommentsComments: 5  |  Sign Up  View all comments
No.1
Cakes33		11:23 AM
07/03/2008
Harrison should definitley be ranked number 1, even though I think John Runyan is a close second. It's seems like every time the ...
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No.2
RedskinFan21ST		12:00 PM
07/03/2008
If Sean Taylor was still alive (R.I.P) he would be receiving this "award". Not to say this is a good one to have but it shows ...
No.3
08:31 AM
07/06/2008
SInce cheating was mentioned at the start of your column. I have met kids 10-12 with morals so high they could not even consider ...
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